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BOOKS BY RALPH D. PAINE 

Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


A Cadet of the Black Star Line. Illustrated, 
12mo $1.25 

The Fugitive Freshman. Illustrated, 12mo $1.50 

The Head Coach. Illustrated, 12mo . . $1.50 

College Years. Illustrated, 12mo . . . $1.50 


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VI 



“ That day of the base-ball game? ” she echoed in 
blank surprise 


THE FUGITIVE 
FRESHMAN 


BY 

RALPH Df PAINE 

Author of “College Years,” “The Head Coach,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

E. DALTON STEVENS 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 

1910 



r 


Copyright, 1910, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Published September, 1910 


CONTENTS 


CHAFTEK PAGE 

I. With the Best Intentions 3 

II. The Bomb Explodes ....... 22 

III. Sergeant Hogan Intervenes 38 

IV. Out on the Long Trail 59 

V. The Singular Disappearance of Thomas . . 68 

VI. A Perilous Haven 94 

VII. Driven Out of Eden 106 

VIII. The Gospel of Hard Work 125 

IX. The Real Thing in Base-ball 140 

X. A Sentimental Interlude 150 

XI. Thomas Pitches for His Life 163 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XII. On Quarter-boat Number Ten . . . . i8i 

XIII. After the Hurricane 204 

XIV. The Rescue of Helen 220 

XV. Concerning Her Father and His .... 238 

XVI. The Rival ’Varsity Pitchers 254 

XVII. Tim McFarland’s Nephew , .... 271 

XVIII. Winning the Championship 284 

XIX. For Old Times’ Sake 299 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


“That day of the base-ball game?” she echoed in 

blank surprise Frontispiece 

FACING FAGS 


Presently he fought his way to the sidewalk, dragging 

after him a fat, red-faced man 46 

“What do you mean by scaring us all to death ? ” . no 

Thomas intuitively threw up his right hand . . . 176 

“That steamer has got to know we’re here and 

needin’ her awful bad” 210 

A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder, and he turned 

to face his former rival 288 




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I 


THE 

FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 








CHAPTER I 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 

Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Jr., had been over- 
taken by a fit of the blackest melancholy. It was 
more painful and serious than the common variety 
of undergraduate ‘‘grouch,” and although this rat- 
tle-pated Freshman deserved no end of scolding, and 
it was a pity that he had grown too tall to be thor- 
oughly spanked, yet his abysmal dejection might 
have moved even a stranger to sympathy. Perhaps 
it is better to paint him at his worst in the very be- 
ginning of this story and have done with it. He is 
introduced to your notice as a very shabby hero, 
indeed, and he must not be allowed to sail under 
false colors. This warning is advisable at the out- 
set because young Tom Meserve had a taking way 
with him, and his shortcomings were so numerous 
that any sympathy whatever would be totally mis- 
placed. 

Let it therefore be set down that he was in his 
second Freshman year in the large and ancient uni- 
versity of Elmsford, though I doubt whether he 
3 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


would have had the grace to blush at making so 
shameful a confession as this. Thomas was a class 
heirloom, so to speak, who had come a cropper at 
the barrier of final examinations in his first Fresh- 
man year and was left behind by the friends who had 
entered college with him. This most unpleasant 
news, that he had ‘^flunked’’ without extenuating 
circumstances, was received by his father with a con- 
siderable display of temper and a series of ultima- 
tums which the hapless youth shuddered to recall. 
Mr. Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Sr., had permitted 
him to return to Elmsford for another start only 
after such promises of shining behavior as, in truth, 
could reasonably be expected of an archangel, a 
valedictorian, and a George Washington rolled into 
one. 

The class from which young Thomas Meserve was 
thus compelled to separate himself by a cold-blooded 
decree of the faculty, sincerely mourned his loss, 
while the succeeding mob of Freshmen among whom 
he was enrolled welcomed him joyfully. This per- 
ennial popularity in the undergraduate world atoned 
for the clouded nature of his status at home. He 
accepted it as one of the soundest of maxims that ‘‘a 
man finds his level on the campus, which takes him 
for what he is worth.’’ It logically follows, there- ^ 
fore, that inasmuch as he continued to enjoy the 
affection and esteem of his fellows, there must h^ve 
4 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 

been something wrong with the parental judgment, 
or so it appeared to the ingenuous mind of Thomas. 

To do him justice, he was a youth of the most ex- 
cellent intentions, from which, however, the fuses 
must have been withdrawn; for they missed fire on 
all occasions. As for good resolutions, he made 
more of them and subjected them to less wear-andN 
tear than any other man in his class. Lovable, 
generous, continually in hot water, he was plain 
footless’’ in the slang of the campus, and the odds 
against his lasting long enough at Elmsford to win 
a diploma were almost prohibitive. He played 
base-ball uncommonly well, and pitched for both 
his Freshman nines; sang a rattling good song, han- 
dled a billiard cue like a wizard; and when not in 
training showed a truly heroic ability to go without 
sleep and turn up at chapel fresh and fit. 

Concerning his scholarship there is so little to say 
that I hesitate even to mention it. Thomas was 
neither dull nor lazy, but there were so many campus 
activities that keenly interested him and such a host 
of friends to be interviewed in all manner of impor- 
tant conferences by day and night, that study and 
recitation hours were dreadfully in the way. He 
was always on the point of bracing up and grinding 
like the very dickens,” but, alas, this was a movable 
point which was shifted from one day to the next. 

If his record in the class-rooms was indifferent, 
5 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


the financial helplessness of this sad specimen of an 
Elmsford Freshman was positively appalling. At 
the end of his first year in college his debts had been 
paid by his father, who became purple of counte- 
nance as he commanded his heir, in a farewell edict, 
to live within his income, or without it; an epigram 
worthy of a more appreciative audience. The heir 
aforesaid honestly meant to obey to the letter, and 
even began to keep a detailed account of daily ex- 
penditures, which was not forgotten and discarded 
for a whole fortnight. 

Now it so happened that Thomas Winthrop Me- 
serve, Sr., was one of the old-fashioned American 
merchants and capitalists who had grown rich by 
means of hard work, canny investments, and a 
frugal habit of outlay. When he sent his boy to 
college he expected him to declare dividends in the 
form of an education, with due regard to operating 
expenses, for which reason young Thomas found 
himself in the awkward position of a rich man’s son 
with a poor man’s income. Unfortunately he did 
not in the least resemble his father, but seemed to 
hark back to an earlier generation of Meserves who 
had been notable for a headlong and spendthrift 
temperament. 

This afflicted youth sat at a disorderly desk by a 
dormitory window that overlooked the populous, 
busy campus. The season of the year was just be- 
6 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


twixt spring-time and summer. The long vacation 
was not far distant and the air was sweet and bright 
and warm, inviting undergraduates to forsake the 
stuffy, stupid class-rooms and loaf and gossip in the 
shade. The Seniors were playing “nigger baby” 
near their segment of the fence, as was the hoary 
custom, and their joyous clamor was varied by an 
occasional wail of anguish as the stinging missile of 
a ball bombarded in a tender spot some victim of 
the hazards of the game. From open windows, here 
and there, cheery young men shouted at each other 
like so many chanticleers crowing in a poultry-yard. 

This pleasant, animated scene had no charm for 
the gloomy soul of Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Jr. 
In the course of a woe-begone soliloquy he said to 
himself : 

“I cannot understand how in the world I ever got 
into the hole again. It must have been fine growing 
weather for debts this year, and I have a lusty second 
crop, and no mistake. Why do the robbers give me 
credit? It is a conspiracy to ruin me. I dare not 
put my troubles on paper and snatch a bird’s-eye 
view of the horrible total. But, confound it, I sup- 
pose I really ought to.” 

Thereupon, with a whimsical recollection of the 
procedure of Robinson Crusoe when in a dire plight, 
he set about jutting down a schedule of his misfort- 
unes, financial and otherwise. It was as well to 
7 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


look the situation in the face, if one were bent on 
making himself as miserable as possible. With con- 
scientious and painstaking earnestness, therefore, 
Thomas began to take account of stock in this 
fashion : 

‘‘(i) Mighty slim chance of passing final exams 
and making the Sophomore class next year. My 
stand in Latin and mathematics has been simply 
rotten. 

‘‘ (2) Number of marks for cutting recitations and 
chapel and going out of town is so near the limit that 
I am lucky if I can stave off being suspended be- 
tween now and summer. 

‘‘(3) The Dean is sore on me about that class 
supper. I did not paint old Franklin’s statue sky 
blue, but he blames me for every fool ruction that 
breaks loose in the Freshman ranks.” 

Thomas paused, glowered at his inky fingers, 
rubbed his head, and turned to face the door. His 
room-mate, Howard Craig, had entered and was 
regarding him with a mirthful smile. 

‘'Why so sad and mussed up?” was the greeting. 
“Nobody expects our little Tommy Bright-eyes to 
be caught in the act of nursing a grouch.” 

“Don’t josh me, Howard,” wailed the other. “I 
am full of real troubles. This game of figuring up 
where I stand is no merry jest. Robinson Crusoe 
chalked down his calamities, and then footed up 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


what he had to be thankful for, and struck a balance 
that was all to the good. But I am totally shy any 
cheering features. It is all one-sided. Nothing but 
(isolation and tragedy. My affairs are so compli- 
cated that there is positively no way of beating them.’’ 

“What have you been doing to that smudgy piece 
of paper? Let me see it/’ demanded Craig, who 
was a solid, matter-of-fact person for his years. 
“U-m-m, how foolish! You knew all this without 
writing it down. Just playing a game with yourself, 
are you? I see nothing here about the money you 
owe. Don’t you intend to complete this pathetic 
page of English prose composition?” 

“I was going to do it, Howard, but it scares me 
to think of looking at the figures. When I get 
through, there will be nothing left for me but to ap- 
ply for a receiver. It is certainly queer about money. 
I get my check from home the first of every month 
and I sort of automatically swell up and feel rich 
for a week or so. And it is the easiest, most natural 
thing to lend a few dollars here and there to fellows 
who happen to be broke. And it is no fun to go to 
the theatre alone, and so I buy a box. I eat at 
‘Gus’ Traeger’s cafe for a few days, blowing a few 
friends off to dinner and so on, and then — presto! — 
instead of living on the fat of the land I am munch- 
ing tripe and sandwiches at Billy’s lunch wagon. 
I don’t seem to be steady-gaited.” 

9 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘^That is quite the sanest diagnosis I ever heard 
you make of yourself/’ replied Craig. ^‘But you 
are drawing it mild, at that. How about those fly- 
ing trips to New York, and other imitations of the 
prodigal son when he was outward bound, eh, 
Tommy?” 

‘T sort of act before I think,” penitently remarked 
Thomas with a wan smile. “I guess I have been 
travelling with the wrong crowd. I ought to steer 
clear of the fellows with fat allowances.” 

‘T have heard this kind of post-mortem oration a 
good many times,” said Craig. ‘^Now get down to 
business. Your present symptoms are almost hope- 
ful. Take that absurd sheet of paper, young Robin- 
son Crusoe, and put your debts down one by one.” 

‘T wish I could have a desert island of my own, 
Howard. Well, here goes. I owe Abe Hamburger 
two hundred, the greasy old scoundrel. That one 
item is enough to give me nervous prostration. He 
has my notes, of course.” 

‘^And how did you get into his clutches?” was the 
stem query. 

‘T lost some of it backing my opinion, befo e the 
last foot-ball game. You^ouldn’t have me a paper 
sport, would you, Howard? College spirit comes 
high.” / / 

‘‘And it is costing you ten per cent a month in 
interest, you tow-headed fool,” chided Craig in most 

lO 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 

unsympathetic accents. ‘‘Hamburger is a crafty 
money-lender and he gave you the cash because he 
knows your father has oodles of coin and will have 
to settle if you don’t, because you are a minor. 
Twenty dollars a month you are dropping into a rat- 
hole. All right. What next?” 

“That dinner I gave at Gus Traeger’s on my 
birthday. Sixty-seven dollars is what the bill looks 
like to me. I hadn’t intended to invite so many fel- 
lows, but they sort of drifted in, don’t you know. 
And we certainly had a good time.” 

“And this is a case of, oh, what a difference in 
the morning, Thomas. Have you any more exhib- 
its as bad as these?” 

“Benson, the Chapel Street tailor, claims that I 
owe him for a hundred and forty dollars worth of 
clothes. I guess he is right.” 

“What did you do with them?” coldly demanded 
the room-mate. “Did you eat them?” 

“No, I sold them to Mose Einstein, second-handed, 
to raise cash for the bare necessities of life — to keep 
body and soul together, old man. Then, of course, 
I had to order more clothes from Benson. They 
get you going and coming. There is no escape.” 

“Not for children and idiots. Let’s hear the 
worst,” said Craig, who was keeping track of the 
items with his own pencil and paper while Thomas 
breathed hard as he wrestled with the pen at his 

II 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


desk and made the entries beneath the memoranda 
which described his precarious relations with the 
faculty. 

‘^Oh, I am a month behind with my bills at the 
eating club, and there is a furniture man who is get- 
ting very restless, fairly rude, and some shoes and 
shirts and a few books, not many, and 

“Put them all down, names and exact amounts,’’ 
commanded Craig. “And don’t try to cover up your 
tracks. Tommy. I am sorry I didn’t have sense 
enough to come to the rescue long ago, but I had no 
idea you were so tangled up. I presume that your 
father would be pretty hot under the collar if he got 
wind of it.” 

“Hot? He would blow up with a report that 
would shake the county,” cried Thomas. “He 
ought to have sent a business manager to college 
with me. No joking, old man. This is my last 
chance. If I cannot get matters straightened out 
somehow, he will yank me from college by the back 
of the neck and put me to work in his horse-shoe 
nail factory. Any fate but that. I’m not sure that 
he would do that much for me. I have certainly 
tried his temper and strained his patience, and he is 
strictly orthodox when it, comes to handling the 
spoiled child. Honestly, he has me scared this time.” 

Craig frowned and studied the harrowing total 
of liabilities. He was very fond of his flighty room- 
12 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


mate and was loath to think of losing him by the aca- 
demic wayside. He distrusted the good intentions 
of the genial, irresponsible Thomas, however, and 
did not know how to help him until an idea popped 
into his mind which he was quick to announce. 

“A business manager! You have hit the nail on 
the head. Perhaps we had better call it a receiver- 
ship under the circumstances. If you like, I am 
willing to take charge of your affairs until you are 
all square, or until you finish college, for that matter. 
We don’t want to lose you, and I feel sure that your 
father will stand no more nonsense. What do you 
say?” 

The notion of a receivership tickled the fancy of 
Thomas and he replied with sudden elation: 

“Simply great! It is awfully good of you to take 
all this trouble on your hands, and I promise to be as 
meek as Moses. Any port in a storm. When shall 
we begin ? I feel better already.” * 

‘•‘You must turn over your allowance checks to 
me,” said Craig, with never a smile. “I handle 
your income absolutely or I refuse to pull you out of 
the pit. One dollar a week as spending money is 
to be your limit. And if you borrow one cent from 
anybody I will beat you half to death, and I am man 
enough to do it. You must quit your expensive 
eating club and come around to my humble joint. 
There is a saving of four dollars a week. As for 
13 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


your debts, I shall spread the surplus around and 
keep your creditors appeased. With Abe Ham- 
burger I shall make some sort of a compromise and 
bluff him into cutting down his interest, and pay 
him back fifty dollars at a time. All those people 
will let you alone over the summer vacation if they 
know that you are honestly letting me run your ac- 
counts. Now, Thomas, you are going to lead the 
simple life. And you are going to pass your exami- 
nations. I will sit up nights to tutor you. Brace up 
and come along to the field for base-ball practice.” 

Thomas Winthrop Meserve was jubilant beyond 
words. He had been delivered from all the snares 
and pitfalls. His confidence in sturdy Howard 
Craig was implicit, and as they walked across the 
campus, arm in arm, the culprit was loud in pro- 
testations of gratitude and eloquent with promises of 
reform. While they waited for a street-car to the 
athletic field, Thomas uttered an ejaculation of dis- 
may and blurted: 

“I left that list of my troubles and my debts on 
top of the desk in full sight of anybody that happens 
to drop into the rooms, Howard. It was an awfully 
silly thing for me to do. I didn^t intend that docu- 
ment for public circulation. Whew, ‘Snoopy^ Mor- 
gan, the tutor in our entry, might drift in there 
looking for me. He reads the riot act every week or 
so as a matter of course. You wait here and I’ll 
14 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 

run back and tuck the sheet of paper out of 
sight 

Meserve trotted briskly ^toward the dormitory, 
scampered up the stairs, bolted into his sitting room, 
and pounced upon the list of his sins which lay con- 
spicuously on the desk. After trying to jerk open 
two drawers which stuck fast, as was their habit, he 
hastily thrust the sheet of paper between the leaves 
of a bulky volume which reposed upon the upper- 
most shelf of the book-case, as the handiest refuge 
that attracted his roving eye. Instantly thereafter he 
departed at full speed and rejoined Craig, who was 
missing street-cars with his accustomed tranquillity. 

His mind relieved of its burdens, Thomas was in 
fine fettle for base-ball and, as matters turned out, 
he pitched with so much skill and energy that the 
Freshman captain praised his work and asked the 
Varsity coach to watch the last two innings of the 
game. That exalted personage was visibly impressed 
and condescended to say to the blushing Thomas: 

‘^You have improved a good deal since I looked 
over the Freshman squad the other day. I shall 
borrow you to-morrow and give you a try-out in 
faster company.’^ 

‘‘Do — do you mean that you want me to report 
with the Varsity squad stammered the Freshman 
pitcher. 

“Yes, until further notice, Meserve.” 

IS 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Thomas expressed his thanks in stumbling fashion 
and confided to Howard Craig: 

“You deserve credit for that honor. I tell you, a 
fellow can’t begin to do himself justice at anything 
if his mind is all stewed up and distracted seven 
ways for Sunday. If you had forced me into a 
receivership two months ago, I swear I believe I 
might have been pitching regularly with the ’varsity 
by this time.” 

Craig grinned but forbore to throw cold water on 
this theory, which seemed thoroughly sound to its 
enthusiastic exponent. Care-free and happy, Thom- 
as turned from bright visions of success on the base- 
ball field to tell his room-mate what great things he 
intended doing in other paths of endeavor. He 
would study hard and “waltz into the Sophomore 
class with spangles on,” for one thing, and his family 
was going to be proud of him. He might even try 
for a scholarship prize or two next year. 

In this enviable mood, Thomas lingered not at the 
gymnasium, but hurried into his clothes, well ahead 
of Craig, to go to his rooms, clear up his desk, put 
his text-books in order, and make ready to spend 
the evening in the hardest kind of study. While 
he was engaged in this praiseworthy task of setting 
things to rights, he happened to think of a minor 
item or two which he had failed to include in the list 
of liabilities. It would never do to muddle things 

i6 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


with the receiver. A complete inventory was part 
of the contract with Craig. Thomas whirled about 
to lay hands on the book in which he had so hastily 
hidden the original document. 

There was no bulky volume upon the topmost 
shelf of the bookcase. Somewhat excited and puz- 
zled, he began an erratic search, tossing books this 
way and that, looking behind the shelves, peering 
under the furniture, pitching divan pillows to the 
floor. Then feeling uncertain of the identity of the 
book he wanted, for he had not paused to read its 
title, he began to shake one portly volume after 
another, snatching them up at random, but no 
smudgy slip of paper fluttered from between the 
leaves. Perhaps some fellow had run in and bor- 
rowed the missing book. 

Dashing into the entry, Thomas Meserve hailed 
the three Freshmen who lived in his dormitory, but 
they pleaded not guilty and he returned to his room 
considerably agitated. The scheme of committing 
one’s intimate and personal troubles to paper might 
have answered very well for a Robinson Crusoe who 
dwelt on a desert island, besides which his man 
Friday had been unable to read, but it was a risky 
performance for a college campus, and Thomas 
Meserve was not at all anxious to have this dis- 
graceful summary of his record fall into strange 
hands. 


17 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


He was still engaged in turning the room upside 
down in an aimless, hurricane style of search, when 
a round-faced elderly negro timidly ventured as far 
as the doorway, stood dismayed at the scene of con- 
fusion, and ventured to observe with an apologetic 
manner: 

‘‘Never mind, Mistah Meserve. 1^11 come back 
when you’se done thro’ havin’ dem fits. ’Scuse me, 
but I jes’ wanted to ’splain ’bout doin’ a errand for 
you this afternoon when you was done gone out to 
th’ fiel’. My, but this yere room looks as if you was 
feelin’ powerful rankabumptious. Reckon I’ll have 
a mawnin’s work pickin’ it up.” 

Thomas halted in his mad career and asked with 
much vehemence : 

“Were you in here this afternoon, Alexander 
Snodgrass, and what the dickens was the errand 
you did for me?” 

Mr. Snodgrass ambled into the room, twiddled his 
hat in his hands, and meekly began to explain: 

“It was ’bout dem books you tol’ me t’other day 

“Books! What books? Jumping Jiminy, you 
didn’t send them ” 

“You lit on me like a ton o’ brick las’ week for 
disrememberin’ to pack ’em in a box an’ ship ’em 
to your pa by express, Mistah Meserve,” Alexander 
Snodgrass broke in to say with a good deal of dig- 
18 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


nity. ‘‘They was a birthday present, you ’splained, 
so I wropped up th’ two of ’em mos’ particular an’ 
give ’em to the express man when he drove on th’ 
campus at four o’clock.” 

The pink and white complexion of Thomas Me- 
serve had blanched to a sickly pallor. Backing 
against the divan, he sat down, plump, as if his knees 
had been suddenly shorn of their strength. His 
mouth was open while he stared, now at the book- 
case, now at Alexander Snodgrass, and strove in 
vain to find words to fit the awful situation. At 
length he managed to gasp in broken accents: 

“W-was — was — one of the two b-books on the top 
shelf yonder?” 

“Yes suh, right on top, an’ t’other one was on the 
next shelf below where I done put ’em when I 
dusted th’ room yestiddy. What all I done wrong, 
heh ? Why is you so dumfoozled, Mistah Meserve ? 
You cussed me out somethin’ scand’lous a while 
ago ’cause I done forget to sen’ dem books. I’se 
got a reputation as th’ mos’ reliable, ’sponsible sweep 
in this yere dormitory. You ain’t reely findin’ fault, 
is you?” 

The voice of Thomas Meserve was weary and his 
gesture mechanical as if life had lost all its zest, as 
he feebly rejoined: 

“No, Alexander, it is all my fault. I did tell you 
to put those two large, expensive books in a box and 
19 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ship them to Cleveland. They cost me ten dollars 
and they were a birthday present for my father. I 
intended to show him that I had solid taste in read- 
ing. I — I never dreamed that you would get so 
dreadfully busy this afternoon. In fact, the matter 
never entered my head when I — ” Thomas gulped 
as if he were facing the hangman^s noose, beat his 
poor, distracted head with his two fists, and pen- 
sively regarded the amazed countenance of Alex- 
ander Snodgrass. 

‘‘Ain’t you done paid for dem books? Is th’ 
store-man tryin’ to get ’em back an’ makin’ trouble 
for you?” queried the tender-hearted sweep. “Bless 
your soul, I’se got ten dollahs you kin have as long 
as you want it. I reckon your daddy gwine be 
powerful pleased wid dem hefty, high-toned books, 
an’ what he finds inside ’em.” 

“Yes, Alexander, that’s it. What he finds inside 
’em is the important feature. Juicy reading, all 
right.” A faint smile flickered across the Fresh- 
man’s despairing features, for although hope was 
dead, his sense of humor could not be wholly sub- 
merged. “ ‘Obey orders if you break owners’ was 
your motto this afternoon. And this has undoubt- 
edly busted me.” 

“Mebbe I better come around when you don’t feel 
so upsot,” suggested the sweep. “I’se thankful you 
don’t bear me no hard feelin’s, but I’se sure sorry 
20 


WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS 


for your distresses. Tears to me you has a mos’ 
mysterious an’ aggravatin’ ’diction, suh. I seen my 
duty an’ I done been gone an’ done it, jes’ like you 
tole me.” 

“ Good-night, Alexander, you have done me up 
brown,” murmured Thomas as the sweep stole 
forth with a solemn air as if he had been attending 
a death-bed. Left to himself, the Freshman bolted 
the door and walked the floor with hasty, fevered 
stride. Somewhere in one of the two volumes of 
‘‘The World’s Greatest Orators” was ambushed 
that dreadful confession of his college misdeeds, in 
tabloid form, as it were ; his sad record for discipline 
and scholarship, and the black enumeration of his 
sinful debts; his dealings with a Hebrew usurer; his 
convivial obligations to cafes, and his dubious trans- 
actions with the tailor. And as fast as trains could 
carry it, this document must be speeding toward his 
implacable father. 


21 


CHAPTER II 

THE BOMB EXPLODES 

The unfortunate Freshman was still striding to 
and fro and talking to himself when Howard Craig 
popped in and, at sight of his obvious mental dis- 
order, lustily demanded: 

‘Tor gracious sakes, Tom, what is the matter 
now? Why, you are worse than ever. I thought I 
had you all straightened out and on the sunny side 
of the street. Come, come, calm yourself and con- 
fess it to your receiver.’’ 

“I am doomed,” wailed Thomas. “No sooner 
am I pulled out of one hole than I fall into a deeper 
one. And life is so unexpected! And I try so hard 
to do the right thing. My college course has been 
hoodooed from the start. I might as well quit.” 

“Overlooked a few creditors? Found a warning 
letter from the Dean? Heard from your stem 
father again?” calmly asked Craig. “I thought 
your lucid interval might last some time. I was 
quite encouraged this afternoon. Guess I fooled 
myself.” 


22 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


Thomas pulled himself together and made a fairly 
coherent confession of what had befallen him, at 
which even the unemotional Craig was daunted. 
He pondered for several minutes, chuckled, frowned, 
and cried out: 

‘‘As a footless performance this breaks all your 
records. Tommy, and you were already in a class by 
yourself, you know. So you tucked that asinine Rob- 
inson Crusoe paper away in a book and then shipped 
it home to your dad! Receiver be hanged! What 
you need is a strong-armed keeper, or two of ^em, to 
stand watch day and night. Didn’t you look at the 
book ? Didn’t you have the sense to remember that 
you had told Alexander to pack it and send it by 
express?” 

“I was in an awful hurry, and I guess I was think- 
ing of something else, Howard,” faltered Thomas. 
“I felt so good over our scheme to fix up all my 
troubles that I had a kind of dry j,vg and, no, I can’t 
recall looking at the book at all when I hid the sheet 
of paper in it. But what good does it do to scold 
me now? I shall get all the punishment that is 
coming to me.” 

“Oh, pooh, Tom, don’t be a quitter. We must 
not give up without making some kind of a bluff. 
Have you telephoned to the express office to find 
out whether the package has been forwarded ? Per- 
haps we can head it off at this end.” 

23 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘Great idea, Howard!^’ and Meserve brightened 
and madly dived after his hat. “Let’s dash over to 
the drug store and call up the express office. It 
looks like a fighting chance. I was so flabbergasted 
that I never thought of doing anything at all. I feel 
kind of hollow and shaky.” 

Alas, to the earnest questions asked over the tele- 
phone, the answer came back that the box addressed 
to “Thomas W. Meserve, Sr., Cleveland, Ohio,” 
had been promptly dispatched on the five o’clock 
express to New York. If the clerk at the other end 
of the wire expected to be praised for this speedy 
transaction, he was disappointed. The telephone 
receiver bore to his ear a hollow groan and what 
sounded suspiciously like a malediction on his head 
and the corporation for which he toiled. Out of 
the drug store tottered Thomas Winthrop Meserve, 
Jr., and crossed the street to the stone steps of the 
nearest recitation-hall, where he sat himself down. 
The faithful Craig did likewise and suggested hope- 
fully: 

“Is it really as bad as all this, Tom? How about 
telegraphing to your mother and asking her to inter- 
cept the box ? Maybe she can head it off before the 
old gentleman has a chance to see the books. A 
fellow’s mother will generally help him out of a 
tight corner, don’t you know.” 

“She is out in Denver visiting my aunt. And if 
24 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


she were at home, I don’t believe she would dare to 
intercede for me very hard. Last year when I was 
dropped from my class, father was for putting me 
at work to do stunts with horse-shoe nails right then, 
but she begged hard and balked him of his prey. 
Honestly, I didn’t intend to be so foolish this year. 
I guess I am built that way.” 

Craig was not to be beaten without another effort 
and after some cogitation he ventured to observe: 

‘Hs there no chance of bribing a servant by wire?” 

‘‘Not on your life. They are all afraid of the 
pater, and ten to one the message would not get 
past him. I am up against it, Howard, and here is 
where I bid old Elmsford farewell forever.” 

“Oh, pooh, Tom, we can cook up a telegram to 
send to your father himself. Make it read some- 
thing like this, ‘Sent wrong birthday present by mis- 
take. Please return express package unopened’.” 

“You are not as well acquainted with him as I 
am,” sighed the Meserve heir. “That message 
would make him open the box just to discover what 
unexpected performance I had been guilty of this 
time. And when he does unearth those infernal 
books he will begin at the preface and read every 
page to the end of Volume Two without skipping a 
line. He is a sincere and painstaking reader if ever 
there was one. And I don’t even know which vol- 
ume contains my charge of dynamite. It may be a 
25 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


week before he plows his way as far as that. And I 
cannot stand the suspense, Howard. I shall sim- 
ply go all to pieces. You had better pick out a 
death-watch from among the fellows in our entry.” 

'^My goodness, but this is a dramatic situation,” 
cried Craig, in whose voice there was a shade of 
gloating satisfaction which excessively annoyed his 
dolorous companion. (Craig had literary aspira- 
tions and was writing for the college magazines.) 
^‘Here you are, in the hands of the blind fates, 
Thomas, my boy, and a thousand miles or so away, 
your doom will be drawing nearer a page at a time. 
Every time your father begins to read another of 
the world’s most famous orations he will be just that 
much closer to the tragic revelation. What a plot 
for a short story!” 

“It is more like a plot for the undertaker,” grum- 
bled Thomas. “The horse-shoe nail factory is bad 
medicine, and I hate to think of it. But that is not 
the worst of it, by a long shot. I shall be soured on 
at home, held up as an awful warning and a horri- 
ble example, and treated like a naughty little boy. 
Father is not so very old in years but he seems to lack 
sympathy with youth. I sometimes feel as if he had 
never been really young. I am already slated for 
the paternal boycott and the outer darkness. I 
suppose I deserve it, but it is awfully hard luck all 
the same. It comes just when I was about to brace 
26 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


up, turn over more new leaves than are to be found 
in ‘The World’s Greatest Orators,’ and live down 
my sad past. If the explosion comes, I shall not go 
home. I will try to get a job somewhere else and 
be my own master.” 

“Oh, don’t throw up your hands yet,” counselled 
Craig. “Your father may be too busy to read just 
now. Perhaps the horse-shoe nail market is on the 
boom. You will be going home for the summer 
before long. It may not be too late then.” 

“I would go out to Cleveland to-night on the 
chance of beating those famous, long-distance ora- 
tors in a breakneck finish,” was the reply. “But 
if I leave college now I am sure to flunk my examina- 
tions, and then I should be in just as bad a predica- 
ment. Speaking of horse-shoe nails, this is a night- 
mare and I never felt less like joking. I cannot 
sleep a wink to-night, Howard. This is a case of 
being put to the torture.” 

“I am willing to go to Cleveland and beard the 
lion in his den,” stoutly quoth Craig as he laid his 
hand upon the restless fingers of his friend. “The 
deuce of it is, though, that all I can deliver is a lot 
of your promises to be good, and he has heard them 
before. And really there is no explaining the docu- 
ment in the case. When it came to teetotally queer- 
ing yourself, you did not overlook one solitary bet. 
However, you are not dead yet. Come on down- 
27 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


town. We’ll play some billiards and eat supper at 
Traeger’s, on me. You will not want to meet any 
of the eating-club crowd to-night.” 

Given more years and a wider experience of life, 
this brace of Freshmen might not have viewed the 
situation as utterly hopeless. If youth, however, has 
its peculiar joys it has also its own penalties. And 
one of the latter is the lack of perspective, so that 
events wear an air of tragic finality far beyond their 
real and ultimate importance in the scheme of things. 
Having convinced himself that his college career was 
blighted, and his father’s wrath imminent and disas- 
trous, Thomas Meserve already looked upon himself 
as an outcast and a foot-ball of fortune. He would 
not return to Cleveland; no, his mind was made up. 
His father had always misunderstood him. Of 
course, he meant to write to his mother, but if she 
should secretly send him money, he must return it, 
kindly but firmly. After he had found a “job” and 
established himself upon his own two feet he would 
go home for a visit. 

These introspections served to maintain a stern 
and Spartan attitude for a little time, but next day 
the Freshman found his nerves in shaky condition. 
The suspense of waiting for the blow to fall was very 
racking, and the victim began to feel panicky and 
was very easily startled. On the base-ball field he 
was so erratic that the ’varsity captain lost patience 
28 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


and sent him back to rejoin the Freshman squad. 
This was a cruel disappointment, made more poig- 
nant by the unjust comment of the coach: 

‘‘You behave as if you had broken training, Me- 
serve. I am disgusted with your performance. I 
heard you were flighty but after I took you over to 
the Varsity field I expected you to realize your 
opportunity.’’ 

“I — I haven’t broken training. I have a good 
deal on my mind to-day,” sadly replied Thomas. 
“I am expecting very bad news from home.” 

“Expecting bad news? I never heard an excuse 
like that. I am not looking for a prophet. I want 
ball-players,” was the unfeeling comment. 

This was in the nature of a last straw, and Thomas 
sulked in his rooms, replying to Craig’s efforts to 
banter him into a more stalwart mood: 

“It is all so outrageously unjust. Everybody hits 
a man when he is down. I can’t play ball, I can’t 
study, and it is hardly worth while trying to do either. 
Men have , gone crazy with a good deal less reason 
than this.” 

Almost a week passed, and Thomas was “flunk- 
ing” in one recitation after another with an air of 
careless indifference. There was no more fight in 
him. His room-mate’s loyal exhortations were un- 
heeded and if any one had said “booh” he might 
have jumped through the nearest window. No word 
29 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


came from Cleveland but the silence was as severe 
a punishment as could have been devised. 

At length, and it seemed ages and ages since the 
fateful day on which Alexander Snodgrass had sent 
the “World’s Greatest Orators” on their devastating 
journey, a messenger boy presented at the door of 
the Freshman’s rooms a yellow envelope which 
Thomas ripped open with unsteady fingers. He 
had expected the worst, and here it was: 


Shall arrive Elmsford Friday morning. Let nothing inter- 
fere with your meeting me. 


T. W. Meserve. 


Thomas showed the telegram to Craig and faltered : 

“The blow has fallen, Howard. Didn’t I tell 
you that he was an earnest and sincere reader? 
The fatal document must have been in the second 
volume. Well, I am glad, honestly I am, to know 
that the bomb has exploded. The one person in 
history with whom I can profoundly sympathize is 
that old duffer, Damocles. It is all over with poor 
Thomas. Father didn’t even send for me, do you 
note that ? He is coming on here to drag me home 
with him after settling my bills for the honor of the 
family.” 

“It certainly looks like it, Tom. He appears to 
be headed this way with all sail set. You can just 
bet that I will say a good word for you, if I can make 
30 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 

him listen, and so will a hundred other Fresh- 
men.’’ 

Tom Meserve stood in the centre of the room, chin 
up, chest out, fists clenched, a fine figure of defiance, 
as if he had resolved to die at his post. The pose 
was only assumed, however, and presently he said 
in a die-away voice which sounded not in the least 
heroic : 

“You don’t know him, Howard. After he has 
chatted with the Dean and with a few of my creditors 
he will be too mad to listen to what a million Fresh- 
men might have to say for me. This is the last nail 
in my coffin — ^his coming on to Elmsford, I mean. 
Oh, Alexander Snodgrass, you meant well, but you 
surely did stack up trouble for me.” 

Tom caught up his hat, jammed it fiercely over 
his eyes, and declaimed quite ferociously: 

“I do not propose to stay here and let him take 
me captive and lead me home by the ear. I am go- 
ing to pack my trunk to-day. Father is due here 
to-morrow morning and that gives me less than 
twenty-four hours’ start. You — you may have my 
share of the furniture, Howard, and the pictures, 
and the rugs. D-darn it, I believe I am getting 
weepy.” 

Craig threw his arm across the shoulders of his 
forlorn comrade and cried with emotion: 

“Don’t be a fool, Tom. Don’t give up yet, old 
31 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


man. You are clean crazy to go charging off this 
way.” Why, your mother will never get over it. 
Where on earth can you find a job, anyhow?’’ 

“I — I don’t intend to go any farther than New 
York,” quavered the fugitive Freshman. ‘^And I 
can send word to mother that I am all right without 
giving my address. As for father, he has brought it 
all on himself. He — he ought to have known bet- 
ter. If he had given me a d-decent allowance I 
could have kept out of debt.” 

^‘You have had enough money, more than I have 
to spend,” was Craig’s sober comment, “but you 
wanted to travel with the high-rollers of the class. 
I am not going to hit you when you are down, Tom, 
but maybe this is the kind of a jolt you need. Only 
don’t be a quitter. And don’t make a bigger ass of 
yourself by running away. Stay here and face the 
music like a little man. Your pater’s bark may be 
worse than his bite.” 

“Oh, shucks, I have had my chance and I have 
made a mess of every blessed thing,” sighed the 
other. “Let’s quit talking it over for to-night. My 
head feels as if the lid was about to blow off.” 

“All right. Tommy, old man. I am awfully 
sorry I can’t be here to-morrow morning. The 
Freshman nine goes to Lawrenceville to play and we 
have to take an early train. But don’t fly the coop 
until I get back to-morrow night. Promise me that.” 
32 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


Meserve shook his head with an undecided air, 
said nothing, and moved toward the campus gate- 
way. Craig had to leave him because of an ap- 
pointment with the athletic subscription committee, 
and the forlorn Freshman wandered aimlessly 
through the quadrangle, having forgotten the minor 
detail of supper. Presently the dusky campus be- 
gan to seethe and hum and hundreds of clamorous 
young men flocked toward the fence. It was a 
spontaneous eruption that soon attracted the dor- 
mitory population from every quarter. After a fusil- 
lade of cheers, a great chorus of strong voices burst 
into the swinging refrain of 

‘‘Chi Ro, Omega Lambda Chi! 

We meet to-night to celebrate 
The Omega Lambda Chi.” 

As if a signal had been given, the crowd surged 
forward, arranged itself into ranks linked together 
arm in arm, and began to dance in a weaving, skip- 
ping maze, circling one elm tree after another, while 
over and over again a thousand young men chanted 
the fragmentary song of the Omega Lambda Chi. 
The origin of this rite was obscure. It was a campus 
tradition handed down from some fraternity long 
since vanished. But as soon as ever the spring-time 
was drifting into summer there happened this curi- 
ous ceremonial of Omega Lambda Chi night.” 

33 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


The words ran to a heady, intoxicating sort of tune 
which was tirelessly reiterated while the celebrants 
rollicked across the campus and into the street, stiU 
singing to every elm in its turn, like a Bacchic chorus 
come to life after two thousand years of silence. 

Tom Meserve stood in the shadows and watched 
the dancing multitude go streaming past the dormi- 
tory halls, nor did he move away until from afar he 
heard the rolling, cadenced chant sound fainter and 
fainter: 

“ We meet to-night to celebrate 
The Omega Lambda Chi.’^ 

As he trudged heavily toward his rooms, remorse 
and regret were tormenting him. He had been of 
these men of Elmsford, privileged to share their 
wholesome, buoyant life, and he had flung it all 
away. The black dog was upon his back and for 
the first time he was learning what it meant to suffer. 
Going into his bed-room he locked the door, unwill- 
ing to face his room-mate. Craig raised a shout 
of greeting when he returned, but there was no re- 
sponse. At last a subdued, weary voice spoke from 
beyond the barrier: 

‘^Good-night, Howard. I have gone to bed.” 

Craig dropped into a chair, rubbed his honest 
head, scowled at the locked door, and said to him- 
self: 


34 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


^^Poor old Tommy! I wish I were older and had 
more sense. I don’t know what to do for him. I 
suppose he will be starved out in no time when he 
gets into the big city, if he really does bolt, and then 
he will have to go home and eat more humble pie 
than fatted calf. The problem will have to solve 
itself. He is the most useless ever, but I am surely 
fond of him.” 

Next morning Craig overslept and was compelled 
to make a cyclonic departure to meet the Freshman 
nine at the railroad station. He aroused Thomas, 
who unbarred the door, sleepily mumbled farewell 
and wished the team good luck, beyond which there 
was no time for talk. Craig fled in haste, feeling 
guilty that he had not delivered himself of sundry 
bracing exhortations. He had vital concerns of his 
own to think of, however, and it was unfair to expect 
him to forget for a moment the fact that he was 
journeying afar to play ball for the honor of the great 
and glorious Freshman class. 

As the Lawrenceville game turned out, Craig made 
two hits, played brilliantly in left field, and, in brief, 
turned the tide of victory so strongly for his own nine 
that he was acclaimed the hero of the contest. Dur- 
ing the homeward journey the game had to be 
threshed over by innings, and Craig found no time to 
brood over his room-mate’s misfortunes until the 
train drew near Elmsford late in the evening. It 
35 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


was with much anxiety and foreboding that he for- 
sook the other players at the corner of the campus 
and hastened to his dormitory. The sitting-room 
was empty, there was no Tom Meserve in his bed- 
room, and on every hand were signs of a rapid and 
disorderly exodus. Craig scanned the desk of the 
fugitive for some farewell message and discovered 
the following note, scribbled with a trembling and 
uncertain pencil: 

Dear Howard: 

I am giving this to Alexander Snodgrass with orders to hold 
it until after my father has left the rooms for the day, and then 
put it where you will be sure to find it. I don’t want father to 
read it. I suppose he will hang around town to have a talk 
with you. You need not meet him, if you see him first. I 
felt as if I wanted to have it out with him, really I did, but I 
lost my nerve again while I was sitting here waiting. It was 
something awful. You don’t know how rocky I feel. It is 
nine o’clock in the morning now and I have decided to clear 
out on the next train to New York, which will just miss him. 
I have swiped a couple of your clean shirts, and will send them 
back, sure. Mose Einstein happened to drop in early and I 
sold him some more clothes, and I can hock my watch and 
some other stuff on the way to the station, so I am all right for 
cash. If you see my father give him the best game of jolly 
you can, won’t you? You need not lie about my college 
record, I don’t want you to, but maybe you can pick out one 
or two good spots in it. I suppose I am a coward and a yel- 
low pup, but I just can’t go home. It is absolutely impossible. 
Fellows younger than I am are making their own living. I 

36 


THE BOMB EXPLODES 


will write you as soon as I can find a job and can look the 
world in the eye. I owe Jimmy Jenkins ten dollars. You 
can sell my Morris chair and pay him, I hope you can find 
a better room-mate in place of 

Yours for keeps, Tom. 


37 


CHAPTER III 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 

A VERY young man of the most gentlemanly ap- 
pearance emerged from a shabby hotel in a side street 
leading from Union Square and looked askance 
at the crowd which eddied along the pavement. 
He was one of an innumerable company of atoms 
that ran to and fro over the face of the metropolis, 
and a week of vainly searching to find a place among 
them had seared the soul of Thomas Winthrop 
Meserve, Jr. His courage and his funds were ebb- 
ing fast. Worse than this, he had caught a glimpse 
of his father on the day before and was convinced 
that the paternal pertinacity which had wrested a 
fortune from horse-shoe nails would be slow to 
abandon the trail. Perhaps the secret that he in- 
tended to flee to New York had been cunningly 
extracted from Craig, who was a poor hand at sub- 
terfuge, thought the fugitive. At any rate, the sight 
of T. W. Meserve, Sr., as discerned afar off, had 
plunged his son into a state of acute panic, so that 
he was afraid to traverse the main thoroughfares 
38 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


and skulked down-town and back again by the most 
devious and disreputable routes. 

College Freshmen were in no demand. New 
York seemed satisfied to do without them, although 
Thomas refused to acknowledge this depressing fact 
as long as possible. He steered clear of his father’s 
business friends and sought a foothold on his own 
merits, chasing ‘‘Want Ads” with the most com- 
mendable agility, pestering city editors who might 
stand in need of a bright cub reporter, and haunting 
the corridors of up-town hotels on the chance of 
finding a lad to tutor, or of “hearing something to 
his advantage.” He had never seriously investi- 
gated the labor market as affected by the law of sup- 
ply and demand. All successful men must have 
made a start somewhere and somehow, he reasoned, 
but if they had begun at the bottom of the ladder 
they must have selfishly pulled the ladder up after 
them. 

“Footless” as he was, there was a streak of stub- 
bornness in the luckless Thomas, and he could not 
picture himself as going home or retreating to Elms- 
ford to find a temporary refuge with Craig and his 
other chums among the Freshmen. Hitherto New 
York had been a kind of enchanted land, to be visited 
when one had money to throw away, a glittering, 
alluring paradise for undergraduates to make merry 
in. Now it had become an unfriendly, chaotic in- 
39 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ferno, lonely beyond words, in which struggling 
mankind had no time for a friendly greeting or a 
helping hand. On the campus Tom Meserve had 
been a personage. Here he was a cursed nuisance. 
He had fled from college as little boys ‘'run away,” 
without any definite purpose, with the foggiest no- 
tions of what might lie before him. 

Alas! there was no amiable Abe Hamburger to 
swap cash for promissory notes at ten per cent a 
month, and Thomas had sold his surplus clothing 
ere he took to his heels. It seemed absolutely in- 
credible that he must soon be adrift without a cent 
in the world, but the bitter reality was not to be 
denied. His father preferred to find quarters in the 
old Astor House whenever business called him to 
New York, of this Thomas was well aware, but he 
balked at the idea of seeking this ignominious har- 
bor and begging for forgiveness and a square meal 
in the same breath. An absurd yet pitiful figure 
was this sprightly, attractive lad, no more fitted for 
a flight into the big and bustling world than a 
fledgling sparrow. 

Thomas had turned his very last dollar into small 
change, a harrowing event in itself, when he made 
the acquaintance of the first man to show the slight- 
est degree of human interest in his welfare among all 
the myriad dwellers in Manhattan. The derelict 
Freshman was headed down-town, after making his 
40 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 

reluctant plunge into the hostile current of the streets, 
bent on interviewing a gentleman who had adver- 
tised in The Herald for a “private secretary. Must 
be a collegian.’’ Preferring to avoid Broadway, he 
veered into Sixth Avenue and walked for some dis- 
tance, debating whether or not to squander car-fare in 
this critical status of his finances, a sane impulse that 
would have delighted his “receiver,” Howard Craig. 

Thomas was passing a corner saloon in a neigh- ’ 
borhood which showed signs of wear and tear, when 
there arose a sudden and prodigious outcry behind 
the swinging half-doors. A deep voice bellowed 
wrath and defiance, there followed a crash as of 
breaking furniture, and the sound of furious scuf- 
fling. Tom ventured to peer over the blind and 
then dodged aside in time to escape the impact of a 
burly giant of a man who cannoned out upon the 
pavement in front of three others who were propel- 
ling him with great violence, the foremost ham- 
mering his broad back with a bung-starter. 

“Bounced, be gob,” exclaimed the ejected one, 
bounding to his feet as if made of rubber. Then 
spying the interested Freshman, he cried vehe- 
mently: “Here, me lad. Hold my coat and hat. 

I was took in flank and surprised. ’Twas an am- 
buscade. Here goes for a charge.” 

With this he began to toss apparel at Tom who 
caught and held it while he stared wide-eyed at the 
41 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


undaunted stranger, who caught his breath with a 
whistling sound, turned swiftly on the enemy, shot 
his fist into the stomach of one who had lingered, 
hastened the entrance of another with a well-aimed 
kick, and shot into the saloon faster than he had 
come out. Thomas followed rather gingerly, mur- 
muring with frank admiration: 

‘H must see the finish of this. He is a good sport 
and has plenty of sand, all right.” 

This time the battle was brief but furious. As 
many as five loafers and bar-keepers rallied to the 
aid of the “bouncer” and against such odds as these 
single-handed valor was overmatched. Heroic was 
the resistance but once more the indefatigable gladi- 
ator went flying through the door to land upon his 
head with a skull-cracking thump. There was no 
chance to kick him while he was down, however, for 
he scrambled to his feet like a cat, wiped his bleed- 
ing nose with his fist, and beckoned to Thomas, who 
had quietly retreated after flattening himself against 
the wall, aghast at this furious style of hand-to-hand 
combat. The stranger trotted nimbly into the near- 
est side street, and the Freshman tagged after, 
silently offering to restore the coat and hat. 

“You are a real good lad,” exclaimed the stranger 
with a merry smile that was somewhat twisted be- 
cause of a swelling lip. “I am ashamed to have 
you see me makin’ a disorderly retreat, but I am not 
42 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


the strong man I was before I did two enlistments in 
the Philippines. The fever and all took the starch 
out of me. Oh, I am not done with ’em yet over 
yonder in the saloon. Don’t think I’m drunk. I 
never touch a drop.” 

Thomas had time to survey the rugged yet pleas- 
ing aspect of this singular person who proclaimed 
the doctrine of total abstinence in such unusual cir- 
cumstances. He was much older than the Fresh- 
man although still a young man on the right side of 
thirty. His face was brown, his gray eyes had a 
dancing light of virile enjoyment of life as it came 
to him, and his chin belonged to the fighting breed. 
Glancing over his shoulder he observed that his late 
assailants were grouped outside the saloon and he 
spoke up briskly: 

‘‘If you’re not too busy, me lad, do you mind foot- 
ing it two blocks up and one over, west, and you 
will see Dennis O’Toole’s billiard emporium. There 
should be four buck privates in there punchin’ holes 
in a table with their poor sufferin’ cues. They’re 
all in uniform. Tell ’em Jack Hogan needs them 
and they will come on the jump. I want to stay 
here and reconnoitre.” 

Thomas dared not refuse. Mr. Hogan had a 
masterly and forceful way with him, besides which 
the youngster who had been so summarily impressed 
as an ally was filled with a natural curiosity to wit- 
43 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ness the next stage of the campaign. Therefore he 
ran at full speed, went wide of a policeman who was 
helping himself to peanuts from a vender^s barrow, 
and had no difficulty in finding the ‘^billiard empo- 
rium” aforesaid. The four “buck privates” of 
Uncle Sam’s infantry were harmlessly squabbling 
over the score, but they grounded their cues at at- 
tention while Thomas delivered his brief message. 

‘ ^ Has he been fighting ? And does he need help ? ’ ’ 
asked one of them in matter-of-fact tones. 

“Yes, and five men jumped on him and he put up 
the bulliest kind of a scrap,” Thomas excitedly 
blurted. 

“ Only five of them ? He got licked or he wouldn’t 
be sending for us,” was the comment of another 
soldier. “Jack Hogan must be getting soft. All 
right, men, I suppose we’ll have to quit our game and 
see what he wants.” 

Thomas led the way with a fluttering emotion of 
pride, as if he were in command of a military expe- 
dition. Behind him, keeping step, two and two, 
tramped the heavy shoes of the calm and ready 
privates. Mr. Hogan, doing sentry duty in the side 
street, welcomed them without emotion and ex- 
plained as they clustered about him: 

“I slipped away from ye, boys, to play a bit of 
very mild poker, me only dissipation as you well know. 
I was handed the tip that the game in the back-room 
44 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


yonder was straight. It wasn’t. I was robbed of 
me eighty dollars, discharge pay and travel allow- 
ance, and when I hollered they threw me out, twice. 
My eighty dollars is in th’ pants pocket of the boss 
robber and he is still inside there. I have kept my 
eye on both doors. Will you help me get back my 
eighty dollars?” 

“Sure, Jack. How about the police? You have 
chucked the uniform but we are still on the muster 
roll,” spoke up the tallest of the four privates. 

“The young lad here will do outpost duty and 
watch for the cops. They will not bother the place 
unless th’ cut-throats inside are gettin’ the worst of 
it,” replied Hogan. “Come on quick. They’ve all 
slipped in behind the doors.” 

Thomas was left to follow with due caution while 
the attacking party of five advanced at the double- 
quick, stormed the saloon door with a yell, and en- 
tered like a landslide. Faithful to his trust, the 
Freshman guarded the line of retreat, although he 
was wild with eagerness to behold the scrimmage. 
From the noise it was to be concluded that the party 
was working its way to the back-room with systematic 
thoroughness. The inmates began to pour out of 
doors and windows, but the task of the military was 
not to be as easy as it appeared. The neighborhood 
had begun to swarm toward the scene and a mob 
was gathering as by magic. 

45 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Jack Hogan and his friends must fight their way out 
again, as it appeared to the Freshman, and he could 
not force a passage through to warn them of the 
peril in rear. In a surprisingly short time the voice 
of Hogan was heard in a roar of triumph and pres- 
ently he fought his way to the sidewalk dragging 
after him a fat, red-faced man whom he dumped 
down like a sack of meal. The four privates came 
boiling out in close order and in a twinkling the mob 
closed in on them. Jack Hogan was tugging at the 
fat man in desperate haste, but his energies were 
sorely hampered. At last, with a mighty wrench, 
he fetched away one leg of his victim’s trousers, 
waved the fragment over his head like a guidon and 
shouted : 

“Clear out of this, boys. It is gettin’ too hot for 
us.” 

Almost submerged by the angry, clamorous mob, 
they cleared a path, hammer and tongs, while Tom 
Meserve took to his heels to save himself. Just then 
a shrill cry arose behind him: 

“There goes the look-out for the soldier gang. 
Get after the lad and beat him up.” 

Thomas looked behind him. He was being pur- 
sued by a score of ruffianly looking men and boys 
whose purpose was most disquieting. He knew not 
which way to turn for refuge, and he expected to be 
overtaken and kicked and clubbed to a jelly. His 
46 



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SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


dangerous situation had not escaped the vigilant eye 
of Jack Hogan, and this loyal comrade promptly 
bellowed to his followers: 

“Cut loose for yourselves, boys. Hike for the 
Governor's Island boat. I must stick by the lad. 
He is the real stuff." 

The frightened, panting Freshman stole another 
glance rearward and beheld Hogan vault over the 
tail-board of an express wagon, snatch the reins from 
the driver’s hands, hit him a reassuring thump on 
the back, and larrup the horse into a clumsy gallop. 
Past the pursuing crowd rattled this chariot, Hogan 
ducking stones, bricks, and bottles hurled at him. 
A moment later he pulled into the curb, waved an 
arm at Thomas who leaped aboard in a headlong 
rush, and the wagon dashed onward, making a hope- 
less stern chase of it. A few blocks of flight at a 
rapid gait and Hogan found time to explain to the 
driver of the vehicle: 

“I seemed kind of hasty, my friend, but the divils 
back yonder was after this lad with no cause what- 
ever, and he needed speedy transportation. Did I 
take ye far out of your way?" 

“Not a step of it," replied the wizened old ex- 
pressman. “I’m Irish meself. Glad to do ye a 
small favor, nor am I askin’ any foolish questions. 
So long as ye didn’t mix me in trouble with th’ cops, 
I have no kick cornin’." 


47 


j THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

‘Tt was awfully white of you/’ said Thomas, whose 
voice was a trifle unsteady. ‘T wish I had more,” 
he continued fumbling in his pockets. ‘‘Take this 
as a little gift, won’t you?” 

In this manner vanished the last remnant of the 
fortune of the fugitive Freshman. Not to be out- 
done, Jack Hogan rummaged in his clothing and 
produced a five-dollar bill which he thrust into the 
driver’s grimy paw with a friendly grin. The old 
man chuckled, cocked his head to one side, and 
warmly vouchsafed: 

“I didn’t hire meself to^be run away with, but if 
you push it at me as hard as that, I can’t refuse. 
Rint is high, and God knows the poor has no easy 
job livin’ at all these days.” 

“Plenty more in my war-bags,” said Hogan look- 
ing down at the leg of the trouser of the fat gambler, 
which was carefully gripped between his knees. 
“I’d better be fishin’ out me eighty dollars, hey, 
lad?” 

The discharged soldier felt in the pocket of his 
spoils of war, turned and twisted the prize this way 
and that, peered dolefully along every seam and 
crevice, and, at length, remarked in lugubrious 
tones : 

“I ripped the wrong leg off him, that’s what I 
went and did. I must have got me compass points 
twisted. I’ll swear I saw him tuck it in his left-hand 
48 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 

pocket so I dove for his left leg and fetched it away 
with me, as ye will have observed.’^ 

Maybe he shifted the money on you,” said 
Thomas. 

‘^’Twould be just like him. He stacked th’ cards 
on me, an’ he was low enough to follow it with stack- 
in’ his breeches. Oh, well, I done my best. Come 
on, my boy. We didn’t charter this wagon by the 
day. So long, Mike.” 

The twain clamored down, the expressman waved 
a cordial farewell, and Hogan looked at Tom Me- 
serve who stared back at the rueful soldier. 

^Tt was my last cent on earth,” said the Freshman. 

“Same here. Th’ five-dollar note was all I saved 
out of the wreck of the eighty dollars,” returned 
Hogan. “We died game, though. A pretty mess 
I have led you into. It is quite natural for me to be 
flat broke but you look as if it pained you consider- 
able. Oh dear! oh dear! you had better run home 
and forget the bad company you were dragged into 
by the hair of your head.” 

Thomas Meserve smiled uncertainly and made 
confession, unwilling to leave this bold and ready 
friend who was not afraid of “going broke” in New 
York or anywhere else. 

“I live in Cleveland, Mr. Hogan, but I can’t go 
home. I have been looking for work and couldn’t 
find it. What are you going to do next? I — I, 
49 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


well, it’s been so fearfully lonesome here in New 
York that I am awfully glad that you asked me to 
hold your coat. My, but you aren’t afraid of any- 
thing, are you?” 

“Sergeant Hogan that was — ^Ninth Infantry — the 
old fighting Ninth, God bless her,” solemnly re- 
turned the other. “I am afraid of only one thing, 
and that is rum. I have just now quit the service 
for reasons of me own. Oh, I was honorably dis- 
charged — no bobtail. And I had it framed up to 
hike for Chicago and strike my old boss for a job. 
I drove a truck for him ten years ago. Why are 
we st^din’ here in the street like a pair of dummies ? 
I have a bit of a room fominst the avenue yonder 
and ’tis paid for until to-morrow. Will ye drop 
around and rest the sole of your foot and have a bite ? 
I keep me own commissary stocked in case of bein’ 
cut off from a base, which misfortune will happen to 
the best of us.” 

The grateful Freshman felt he had found a port 
in a storm. There was something frank and honest 
in the face and speech of Sergeant Jack Hogan. 
Already the youngster was stirred by something akin 
to hero-worship. As a small boy he had longed to 
go to West Point, and the sight of marching regulars 
and the thrilling call of the bugles and the drums 
had always made his pulse beat faster. The epi- 
sode of this chance acquaintance appealed to his 
50 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


impressionable mind as immensely romantic and 
diverting. He had begun to think there was no 
such thing as loyal friendship outside the campus, 
but how splendidly the four ‘‘buck privates” had 
rallied to their comrade’s call for help without delay- 
ing an instant to question the odds! The Freshman 
offered his hand with sincere homage and said: 

“Thank you. I want to talk to you some more. 
My name is Meserve. I was in Elmsford College 
until a few days ago.” 

Hogan slackened his pace and shrewdly regarded 
the tall youth as he made comment in this wise: 

“A deserter, are you? An’ was it a row with 
your dad, or a girl, or a shindy with the professors 
that made ye think your fine young life was all 
smashed to smithereens? By the look of you ’tis 
a good home you’re turnin’ your back on. I don’t 
mean to butt in, lad, but I am hot-headed meself, 
and it was going off at half-cock that has made 
much heavy trouble for Jack Hogan. Can’t we 
patch things up and put you back in college where 
you belong?” 

Thomas shook his head, sullenly obstinate, and 
walked along in silence. The stalwart sergeant 
sighed as if his own thoughts and memories were 
poor company and forbore to press the argument. 
Soon they came to a lodging house up the stairs of 
which Hogan led the way to a tiny box of a room 
SI 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


which appeared singularly clean and orderly after 
the dingy, unpleasant halls. 

‘T scrubbed the floor meseK and tidied up as best 
I could, explained the lodger. ‘‘Dirt worries me. 
I was rated a smart soldier in camp or barracks. 
I am travellin’ in light marchin’ order at present, but 
my arms and accoutrements will stand your inspec- 
tion.’^ 

The Freshman gazed with the liveliest interest at 
a corded bundle of strange weapons standing in a 
comer. 

“Trophies?” he asked. 

“You might call ’em such,” said Hogan, seating 
himself upon the cot and waving his guest toward 
the only chair. “One of them is a Boxer sword an’ 
the hilt is decorated with the pigtail of the cock- 
eyed heathen that owned it. I got him with th’ 
bayonet just beyond the mud wall of Tientsin. The 
Chinos made hash of us there at Tientsin — I was 
with the Ninth, understand. There was near two 
hundred good men hit in the two battalions the day 
we lay on our stummicks in th’ mud and water and 
were made targets of. The old man — the colonel — 
got his — drilled clean through, he was.” 

“You marched to Peking against the Boxers?” 
cried Thomas admiringly. 

“An’ I lost some good friends and had precious 
little loot to show for it. That bolo I brought away 
$2 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 

from Samar. We left a whole company there, mas- 
sacred, they was, in a bunch. They died game. 
Oh, she is the finest fightin’ regiment in the service, 
an’ ye can track her by her graves from Santiago 
to the Philippines by way of China. But you are 
makin’ a fool of me, boy. Shall I talk your head off 
while you’re starvin’ to death before my eyes ? Get 
busy, Hogan. Sound mess call, you lobster.” 

From beneath the cot he hauled a coffee-pot, 
propped it over the gas jet, fished a loaf of bread and 
a can of deviled ham from a neatly laced canvas sack, 
and pulled the corks from two bottles of ginger ale. 

‘^We have rations for two days, but I’ll be on my 
way sooner than that,” said Hogan with bracing 
assurance. “Help yourself. There’s others a heap 
worse off. For dessert I’ll roll ye a cigarette.” 

“But how are you going to find a job?” asked 
Thomas, in whose mind this baffling problem was 
uppermost. “I’ll drive a truck if I have to, but no- 
body wants me. They won’t even listen to me in 
this beastly town. I wish you felt like advising me.” 

Hogan airily flourished a muscular arm and ex- 
plained as if he were addressing a wayward child: 

“You look as if you were afraid of hard work, me 
son. A college rookie is th’ most useless thing in 
the worrld. Now, I have a notion of what is stew- 
in’ in your poor young noodle. You think you are 
goin’ to enlist in the army and win a commission. 

53 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


It has just come to you while you were listenin’ to my 
hot air. ’Tis no place at all for you, understand?” 

‘^Why not?” The Freshman flushed, discomfited 
that he should be so easy to read, and resenting the 
soldier’s verdict. 

“Oh, I don’t want to rub you the wrong way, 
boy, but if you could not stick in college you would 
go all to the bad in the army. ’Tis every man for 
himself there and the divil takes the hindmost. And 
besides, there would be some broken hearts at home. 
I refuse to stand for it. I like ye and you may have 
took notice that I am a determined man. If you 
don’t drop this fool notion I will send warning to the 
recruitin’ officers to head ye off and notify your 
daddy. Now will you be good? Have another 
poke at the ham and bread.” 

Abashed and afraid to argue the matter, Thomas 
Meserve was cornered, with never a plan or purpose 
in his poor, addled head. Desperately in need of a 
confidant, he sat slumped upon his chair, while, with 
a most dismal countenance, he poured out his heart 
to Sergeant Jack Hogan, who listened in non-com- 
mittal silence. When the pitiful, foolish tale was 
done, the Freshman paused, knitted his brows, and 
added as an after-thought: 

“What else was there for me to do ? Tell me that. 
I was up against it both ways. There never, never 
was such a horrible, tragical predicament.” 

54 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


Hogan grinned, checked his rising mirth as un- 
seemly, and was moved to say: 

^‘No, I guess there never, never was, you silly, 
pig-headed, trouble-hunting young reprobate. And 
so this is what you call tragical! If you wasn’t so 
near to sheddin’ tears I’d laugh meself black in the 
face. You had your chance, a bigger, better chance 
than most men, and you didn’t make good. Do 
you know what a real grown-up man does when he 
falls down on his duty and has nobody but himself 
to blame? He takes his punishment and he never 
squeals, and he knows that he got what was cornin’ 
to him. You, you are a baby, a whimperin’ pup, an’ 
ye talk of the other ^men^ in your college class. 
Oh, hell!” 

So fierce was the contempt expressed in the speech 
and mien of the sergeant that Thomas slunk toward 
the door, ready to flee this humiliating scene. Hogan 
put out a long arm, gripped his sleeve, and roughly 
dragged him back and flung him down on the cot 
beside him. 

“Where was ye aimin’ to go?” he asked in softer 
tones. “I am talkin’ to you for your own good. 
You did me a good turn. Now, if you want to worrk 
an’ earn your salt and stand on your two feet, you 
follow me an’ I’ll make a man of you. But no more 
whining, no more bleatin’ about ‘tragical predica- 
ments.’ Ye may not thank me, but your father 
55 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

will, some fine day when Johnny comes marchin’ 
home.” 

The Freshman had not the spirit to resist, nor 
was he strong enough to face the dreadful prospect 
of being set adrift again. Stung by the insults with 
which he had been so ruthlessly bombarded he 
plucked up courage to say: 

^‘You are pretty hard on me. Sergeant. I am not 
quite as sandless as all that. You cannot frighten 
me into going home, not yet, and if you are willing 
to put up with my foolish and annoying ways, I 
swear I am ready to hunt any kind of a job with 
you.” 

Hogan beamed good-naturedly, slapped this new- 
fledged comrade on the shoulder, and replied: 

was rough with you, lad, and you have a right 
to call me down. Here I am preachin^ to you, and 
scoldin’ away as if I was fit to pass sentence. You 
found me in bad company an’ you’re too much of a 
gentleman to poke it at me by way of squarin’ your- 
self for what I just now said to you. I am not a 
gamblin’ man beyond a shuffle of the cards now an’ 
then by way of diversion. I’ve seen too much of it 
in the service. I had no business in the back-room 
of that saloon, an’ ye caught me with the goods. 
There’ll be no more of it while you an’ I join forces, 
understand? Your daddy’ll never have a chance 
to accuse me of corrupting your tender morals.” 

56 


SERGEANT HOGAN INTERVENES 


Thomas admired the sergeant more than ever 
and exclaimed impulsively: 

“I’m not afraid to trust you. Do you really want 
me to tag along with you? And aren’t you really 
anxious about finding something to do? We are 
flat broke, you know, and I’ll confess it makes me 
feel awfully lost and forlorn and cheerless. If it 
wasn’t for you I’d ” 

“Would you think about goin’ home, you young 
prodigal?” Hogan spoke up quickly. “If so, then 
I’ll lift ye to the sidewalk by the slack of your trou- 
sers an’ leave you there. It is the best thing in the 
world for you to be thinking of.” 

“No, I am not whipped to a standstill yet, ser- 
geant. If you really want to get rid of me. I’ll go 
it alone.” 

“You little bantam, you. To hear you crow, a 
man might think you knew what you were doing,” 
said Hogan. 

He began to wash the coffee-pot and the tin-plates 
with deft quickness as he went on: 

“We will cinch those jobs by sundown. They 
are waitin’ for us somewheres in this big town. I 
want a start, that’s all. Handling men is my trade, 
and I’ll win my promotion. Ready? Forward, 
March!” 

Hogan pounded down the rickety stairway as if 
he were leading an invincible storming party. His 
57 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

confidence in himself and the star of his destiny 
was so stimulating that the Freshman no longer felt 
faint-hearted and useless. It seemed to be the most 
natural thing in the world that he should have linked 
his fortunes with the turbulent fates that guided the 
course of Sergeant John Hogan, late of the Ninth 
United States Infantry. Adventures awaited them. 
What mattered it that their pockets were empty? 
They were two musketeers and the world was their 
oyster. Such a thing it is to be twenty years old 
on a fine summer day with a brisk wind blowing off 
the sea and the blood coursing like quicksilver. 
Thomas strode beside his stalwart, deep-chested 
companion, head in air, arms swinging sturdily, 
going heaven alone knew where, and saying to him- 
self: 

‘‘By George, this is living! There wjll be some- 
thing doing, you can just bet, as long as he lets me 
fight it out with him. And if I ever do go back to 
college I may have a few stories to tell the fellows 
that will make them sit up.” 


CHAPTER IV 


OUT ON THE LONG TRAIL 

The two soldiers of fortune chanced to pass an 
army recruiting office and when Thomas lingered to 
gaze at the gaudy posters, the sergeant grasped him 
by the collar and towed him onward, grimly chuck- 
ling as he read the thoughts mirrored in the young- 
ster’s frank countenance. 

‘‘That is the last resort for us, me boy,” said 
Hogan. “My old comrades will be expecting me 
back amongst them, but we are after foolin’ them 
this time. Ye cannot have much confidence in my 
ability to land on me feet and find you a berth in my 
select and highly moral company if you are still 
nursin’ the army idea in your noddle.” 

“Oh, I was just looking at the gorgeous pictures,” 
hastily explained Thomas. “The uniforms are so 
natty and resplendent, and never a wrinkle from 
top to toe. If my tailor had given me that kind of 
a fit I wouldn’t feel so remorseful over the bill I 
owe him.” 

“You will not have a chance to consult a swell 
59 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


tailor for some time, if you travel with me, you 
spoiled child of fortune,’’ said Hogan. ‘‘When I 
was coming up-town this mornin’ I caught sight of 
another style of poster from the tail of me eye, and 
it looked good. But I had me eighty dollars then 
and I was stepping high and scornful.” 

“Was it the navy?” hopefully asked the Fresh- 
man. “That would not be so bad at a pinch.” 

“It struck me as kind of am-amphibious like — a 
web-footed job for husky men not afraid of hard 
work. And that is what I am lookin’ for this after- 
noon, and the same is my battle-cry. The place is 
not far from here. I intend to give you one more 
chance to imitate a young man thinking real, serious 
thoughts of home before I let you cut your cables. 
But it will do ye no harm to look the proposition 
over with me.” 

Tom Meserve restrained his curiosity and had lit- 
tle more to say until Hogan quickened his swinging 
gait and crossed the street toward a group of seedy, 
trampish looking men in front of an office doorway. 
Posted behind them was a placard reading: 

MEN WANTED. 

Florida Railway and Navigation Co. 

Laborers, $1.75 a Day and Board. 

Transportation Furnished. 

Comfortable Quarters. Good Treatment. 

Railroad Construction in a Tropical Climate. 

60 


OUT ON THE LONG TRAIL 


‘‘That looks like a pretty tough proposition to 
me/’ was the doleful observation of Thomas Me- 
serve. “I should last about a minute as a laborer 
in a tropical climate. However, as the lone pri- 
vate of this expedition, sergeant, I have no right to 
object.” 

“Tut, tut, I will have no insubordination,” mut- 
tered the other behind his hand. “Don’t squeal 
before you are bit. This looks like my game and I 
intend to play it strong. Me a laborer? I have 
heard of this bit of railroad work. They have mus- 
tered five thousand of the toughest tarriers alive 
down yonder on th’ Florida keys, and what they are 
cryin’ for is foreman and bosses' to handle ’em. 
’Tis my lawful trade as I told you before. The 
recruitin’ ofiicer can sign me on for one-seventy-five 
per, but for how long?” 

“I hardly see where I come in,” anxiously, almost 
tearfully persisted the fugitive Freshman, his dreams 
shorn of their glamour in a twinkling. “I cannot 
whip five plug-uglies at once. I appreciate the fact 
that this is a game after your own heart, but it is 
too strong for me.” 

“S-s-s-h, there ye go! Bleating again, which I 
strictly forbade,” and the accents of the soldier were 
severe. “Will they not be needing clerks and store- 
keepers and commissary bosses and such like ? And 
as soon as ever I am a boss, which will not be long, 

6i 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


1^11 be wantin’ a time-keeper. On the other hand, 
maybe a bit of honest toil would not kill you as quick 
as you think. ’Tis a great chance for good men that 
can steer clear of rum. Come along, now. One 
more whimper an’ we part company.” 

Hogan thrust a squad of applicants this way and 
that, surveying these bleary, broken outcasts with 
great disfavor, and addressed the employment agent 
without wasting words. 

‘^John Hogan is me name. No home address. 
Last job I held was first sergeant, D Company, 
Ninth U. S. Infantry. Here’s me discharge papers 
and I am proud of them.” 

The harassed agent, weary of sifting the wretched 
material that drifted past his desk, looked at this fine 
specimen of a man as if he were a most refreshing 
sight and curtly replied: 

‘‘Good. You’ll do. I want no better recommen- 
dations, and I wish you could have brought your 
whole company with you. Step into the next room 
and get your orders and your transportation. The 
special train leaves the Pennsylvania station, Jersey 
City, at seven to-night. Are you broke? Do you 
want a supper ticket ? lam not afraid of your run- 
ning away. Sergeant.” 

“Without tellin’ you the story of me finances, I 
will say that the supper ticket will not be wasted,” 
said Hogan. “I want two of them, if you please.” 

62 


OUT ON THE LONG TRAIL 


He pulled Thomas to the front and explained: 
‘‘This lad goes with me, for better or worse. He is 
in rotten bad company, barrin’ meself, but he is 
ready to enlist.’’ 

Poor Tom Meserve, always smartly, fastidiously 
attired, even in adversity, looked indeed as he had 
fallen among thieves. His incongruous appearance 
awakened the calloused interest of the employment 
agent, who asked gruffly: 

“Ever do a day’s work? Sure you know what 
you are doing? We want no more dead-wood on 
our hands than can be helped. Oh, pshaw, you are 
clean and sober, and I am shy forty men for my 
shipment to-night. What is your name? You 
don’t have to give your real one, you know.” 

Thomas blushed to the ears, looked helplessly at 
Hogan, and blurted: 

“T. Winthrop, if you please.” 

A little later this brace of duly enrolled laborers 
were permitted to be at large for a last glimpse of 
the city and its civilization which had cast them out. 
Thomas was in a dazed mood. He could recall 
dreams whose events had seemed more real and co- 
herent than the things which had happened to him 
during this incredibly crowded day. He was begin- 
ning vaguely to realize that he had made many kinds 
of a fool of himself yet he was sternly resolved not 
to show the white feather. There must be no more 
63 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘bleating/’ and if “college sand” meant anything 
at all, now was the time for him to play the man. 

More than ever there was something mysteriously 
uplifting and bracing in the companionship of Ser- 
geant Hogan, a supreme confidence in his manner of 
facing the world that seemed to guarantee success in 
whatever he might undertake; a headlong contempt 
of obstacles that caught hold of the lad’s imagina- 
tion and blinded him to the folly of his flight to the 
Florida keys. 

They hurried to the hotel where Thomas planned 
to leave his trunk in storage as a pledge for the tri- 
fling sum owed for his room, and while he was pack- 
ing a suit-case for the march, the sergeant cocked 
his wise head to read the initials painted thereon. 

“T. W. M., Jr.,” he said to himself. “Then 
his old man has the same name as himself and he 
lives in Cleveland, does he? I will remember that. 
I may devise a small bit of strategy of me own before 
we hit the trail to-night.” 

For several minutes Hogan silently, pensively 
regarded the busy youth and then said to him, with 
the ghost of a sigh: 

“I wonder why I have bothered with you at all? 
’Tis no small responsibility. I came near turnin’ 
you over to the police to be held till called for. An’ 
I might have telegraphed your college and your 
folks at home, I suppose. Perhaps it is because I 
64 


OUT ON THE LONG' TRAIL 


made such a blazin’ fool of meself^at your age, 
though I never had your chances. Yoii had an edu- 
cation handed to you on a gold platter an’ you kicked 
the platter over. No, I never had a chance like 
that, an’ me head is too thick to do anything with 
the books now. But I have learned some lessons of 
me own. They came high, and they came hard, so 
they did, an’ it is my intention to hammer ’em into 
you, me son. If I let you go adrift, you are likely 
to be a lastin’ sorrow to the mother that bore 
you.” 

Thomas looked up from his task, angry and 
amazed, and cried gustily: 

‘‘Here, I won’t stand for such talk. If I am as 
bad as all that, you can go your way and I’ll go mine. 
Nobody ever said such things to me, not even my 
best friends.” 

“That’s what is the matter with you,” calmly re- 
plied Hogan. “If they had, your eyes might have 
been opened sooner, and the process would not 
have been so painful. I’ll not eat me words. It is 
for the sake of your mother, and mine, that I have 
taken you in hand. And it will do ye no harm to 
think over the meanin’ of that remark.” 

“I am grateful to you,” said Thomas with less 
vehemence, “but all this preaching is uncalled for. 
I have not been bad, only just foolish and thought- 
less, and I was bracing up, I tell you.” 

65 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘A man must make a reason for livin’ in this 
world,” observed the martial philosopher. “Did 
you ever think of that ? By my doctrine, ‘a thought- 
less and foolish man,’ as you politely call yourself, 
is so much rubbish. He ought to be swept into the 
trash pile to make room for his betters. There 
now, I’m no shining light to steer by, Thomas. I 
have freed me mind, an’ there will be no more ser- 
mons. From now on, it will be more action than 
words. I have a bit of an errand down-stairs an’ 
I will rejoin you presently.” 

The Freshman was sulky and humiliated and had 
no comment to make as Hogan went to the hotel 
office, sought a desk and stationery, and made use 
of a spluttering pen with this result: 

To Mr. Thomas W. Meserve, Senior, 

Cleveland, Ohio. 

Dear Sir: Unbeknownst to your son, I have the honor to 
inform you that the undersigned has this day taken command 
of him. I tried my hardest to make him go home and show a 
grain of sense, but he is not as old as he will be some day, which 
you know yourself, and maybe it will benefit him a whole lot 
to get up against it good and hard. At least, this is how it 
looks to me. I am going to put him to work. It will not be 
as easy as college but his diploma will be worth having. I 
like the boy, but he has been mishandled something fierce. 
It would not be square to give him away and tell you what his 
game is. But you can bet your last blue chip that his bunkie 
will see that no harm comes to him. Pass the word to his 
66 


OUT ON THE LONG TRAIL 

mother, if you please, that Thomas is going strong, and sends 
her his best love, and aims to land on his feet before he wig- 
wags any messages to the old folks at home. We are ready 
to vamoose from little old New York to-night to hit the long 
trail for a place where good men are in great demand, and not 
in the army either. Our jobs are already cinched. With 
kind regards and hoping you will forgive the liberty I take in 
kidnapping Thomas, I am 

Most respectfully your humble servant: 

John Hogan, 

Late First Sergeant^ D Company, 
gth U. S, Infantry. 

‘‘When I ran away from home, I’d have been 
grateful to the lad that would have taken the trouble 
to do the same favor for me,” reflected the writer as 
he ransacked his pockets for pennies and was de- 
lighted to find the price of a postage stamp. “Boys 
are sure heartless that way. He has clean forgotten 
even to write to his mother. ’Tis a wonder parents 
have courage to raise ’em at all. All Thomas can 
think of is his own troubles, and they aren’t heavy 
enough to make a dent in a feather bed if you dropped 
them off a roof. I’ll kill him or cure him, so help 
me.” 


67 


CHAPTER V 


THE SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF 
THOMAS 

Tom Meserve was vainly trying to sleep in a 
railroad car crowded with passengers who jested 
and quarrelled and sang in many tongues; for the 
labor drag-net had swept up Italians, Polacks, Greeks, 
and men from all the world, who must work or 
starve. Even the undaunted Hogan looked them 
over with disgusted amazement as one of the sorriest 
lots of vagrants and scarecrows he had ever seen 
herded together. As the sergeant glanced at the lad 
swaying drowsily beside him, he murmured under 
his breath: 

‘^The Florida Railway and Navigation Company 
must be quite unpopular, or the country is going 
to the dogs. I never thought there was so much 
derelict humanity adrift in one town. There isn’t a 
day’s work in a dozen of them. The better chance 
for a good man, Hogan! Buck up, me boy! Elms- 
ford College was never like this, hey, Tommy? 

68 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 


’Tis a fine timperance lesson, though. Th’ car is 
full of horrible examples. Look what it has done to 
’em, for the love o’ Heaven. I’ll bet I can find 
more’n one college man aboard this train, most 
likely cursing the day he was born.” 

The vile air, the stench of stale tobacco smoke, 
and the reek of alcohol were suffocating. Thomas 
shuddered and withdrew his head from the open 
window long enough to reply with as brave a smile 
as he could muster: 

‘‘It’s all right. Jack. If you can stand it, I can. 
They are pretty rough, aren’t they? I have seen 
hoboes, but I never expected to have to live with 
them. Two days and nights of this game will make 
me sore on the doctrine of the brotherhood of man.” 

Hogan beamed hopefully as if his own faith were 
unshaken, and foraged in his canvas sack, which 
yielded several sandwiches wrapped in a piece of 
newspaper. 

“The last of me bread and divilled ham,” he ex- 
plained. “ ’Twould have been a sin to waste ’em. 
’Tis a true sayin’ that an army marches on its stum- 
mick. Eat hearty.” 

Thomas munched his ration, then let his head 
rest upon the window-sill and wearily closed his 
eyes. The sergeant tried to read the torn news- 
paper and presently turned the sheet. With an ex- 
clamation he grasped the startling import of a string 
69 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

of huge black head lines which ran across the front 
page of the flagrantly yellow journal: 

FEARFUL SUFFERINGS OF 
WHITE SLAVES TOILING 
ON THE FLORIDA KEYS. 


STORIES OF REFUGEES WHO HAVE 
ESCAPED FROM THEIR 
BRUTAL CAPTORS. 

Thousands of Laborers Compelled 
To Endure Incredible Hardships 
In Terror of Lash and Pistol. 

Hogan read no further than this. A shadow fell 
athwart the page and he glanced up just as the 
agent in charge of the party snatched the newspaper 
from his hands and tore it to bits with angry haste. 
The soldier leaped to his feet in fierce resentment, 
but checked himself lest he awaken his companion, 
who had suddenly drifted into slumber. With a 
warning gesture he beckoned the agent to follow 
him to the end of the car, where he grimly told him : 

‘^You are playing in luck that I didn’t wipe this 
dirty floor up with ye, me man. You got very gay 
with me and you are not dealing with the scrapin’s 
of hades that comprises the rest of your cargo, un- 
derstand? Now, how about it? I intend to keep 
it dark from the lad that’s with me. On the level, 
70 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 


has this newspaper got it straight ? You can’t scare 
me out, but it isn’t too late to save the youngster.” 

The agent had been picked for brawn and courage 
and he looked the sergeant between the eyes as he 
returned : 

‘^No, Hogan, the newspapers have faked a lot of 
that stuff. Between you and me, building a railroad 
across the Florida keys is no giddy, gilt-edged picnic, 
’specially in the summer time. Good men who can 
get better jobs at construction work out West won’t 
go there. We get the leavings and we expect to 
get our money out of ’em.” He shook his clenched 
fist in a burst of wrath as he added: '^Are we going 
to lug ’em fifteen hundred miles and let ’em quit 
before they have worked out their transportation?” 

“I notice that ye have locked the doors of the 
cars,” dryly remarked Hogan. “And this drove of 
cattle didn’t read the newspapers or they wouldn’t 
be here. I forgive ye for what you did to me. I’m 
glad my bunkie didn’t see the paper. You’re a man 
all right. So am I. White slaves, eh ? The joke is 
on them. I’m going down there to be one of those 
cruel, brutal captors.” 

Hogan swaggered back to his seat, perturbed and 
very uneasy, for all his cocksure bravado. He was 
not in the least afraid for himself but his responsi- 
bility for the fate of the slumbering Freshman was 
pulling at his heart. This role of protector, guide, 

71 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


and champion had begun to awaken impulses and 
instincts of affection which it would not have been 
far-fetched to call paternal. He stood in the aisle, 
frowning down at the lad who had never known 
hardship or physical danger, who had been sheltered 
all his days from the world’s rough hand. 

“God knows what I’m leading him into,” thought 
Hogan, “but he is as helpless as a stray kitten and I 
never yet turned me back on what I had once set 
out to do. You are booked to go the route to the 
finish. Mister Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Junior. 
And whatever it is, it can do ye no more harm than 
loafin’ and foolin’ your way through college, a sor- 
row to your parents and a nuisance to your friends. 
‘Footless’ he called himself. ’Tis a new word and 
a polite one for a fool.” 

Oblivious of this affectionate condemnation, Thom- 
as slept fitfully while the sergeant slipped his arm 
under the youngster’s head and let it rest there until 
the muscles were stiff and cramped. The long, 
wretched night wore on toward daylight and the 
sodden company in the car became quieter. Hag- 
gard, unshaven, many of them ragged, they sprawled 
grotesquely across the seats, a picture for none other 
than Hogarth. When the train halted at Richmond, 
negroes came on board to distribute pails of coffee 
and sandwiches as breakfast, but the men were 
not allowed to disembark and the vigilant agent in 
72 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

charge drove away the newsboys who were crying 
“Latest Philadelphia, New York, and Washington 
papers.’’ 

“By Jingo, this is too much like being kidnapped,” 
yawned the Freshman. “I want to get out and 
stretch my legs. Jack. Don’t you think we ought to 
object?” 

“Wait till you can put it in writing,” was the tact- 
ful reply. “’Twill do no good to kick to the non- 
coms. If some of these thirsty tarriers smelled a 
grog-shop in the town they couldn’t be dragged 
back to the train. On one of these personally con- 
ducted tours to the swell resorts of Florida you have 
to do as you’re told.” 

Feeling somewhat refreshed, Thomas began to 
study his neighbors with lively curiosity. A hand- 
some, though dissipated-looking young Englishman 
across the aisle made friendly advances, as if recog- 
nizing one of his own species, and a round-shoul- 
dered little man, timid, wrinkled, and gray, halted 
to pass the time of day. Quite obviously they had 
fallen from better fortune than this. The English- 
man had been singing at intervals all through the 
night until his bottle was empty. He had a tenor 
voice of beautiful quality and considerable cultiva- 
tion and his choice of melodies ran for the most part 
to old country ballads which moved some of his 
audience to tears that were not altogether maudlin. 

73 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Something in the way he carried himself made Ho- 
gan murmur to the Freshman: 

^^He has seen service, and with smart troops at 
that. A cashiered officer, or I miss my guess.” 

The gray, timid little man babbled of his troubles 
and found friendly ears. He was a book-keeper, 
cast off after thirty years of office drudgery, driven 
to this last extremity to keep body and soul together. 
Hogan resolved to help him somehow. He appealed 
to the soldier’s sympathies as even more forlorn and 
helpless than the Freshman. For the rest of this 
motley company he cared not a straw. If he were 
given authority over them he would drive them until 
they dropped in their tracks. He meant to climb 
over them and kick them out of his way. 

Weary and dishevelled and begrimed, these sorry 
laborers came at length to the sandy pine and pal- 
metto lands of Florida and were hauled southward in 
the blistering summer heat, farther and farther, until 
the journey seemed to have no end. Past the blue 
lagoons of the Indian River, in sight of the deserted 
winter hotels of Palm Beach, beside miles of ripening 
pineapple patches and stately clusters of cocoanut 
palms, the dusty train crawled toward the remote 
wilderness of the scattering keys that trailed toward 
the Gulf and the tip of the Florida peninsula. The 
railroad left the last town behind it and ran through 
miles and miles of desolate swamp, wire-grass and 
74 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 


water and tiny islands stretching to the horizon in 
sad, unchanging monotone. 

Mosquitoes, clouds of them, poured into the open 
windows and drove the men mad with irritation, 
until a fresh salt wind came surging from the nearby 
sea and brought relief. It was late afternoon when 
the rough-laid track began to cross one long trestle 
after another that bridged stretches of open water of 
marvellous, shimmering hues of green and blue and 
violet. The pilgrims who crowded the car plat- 
forms shouted with profane surprise. On one side 
the ocean itself ran clear and unbroken to the sky- 
line, on the other the bright water was dotted with 
low, ragged islets green with lush mangrove bushes. 

The railroad was pushing its way southward from 
one of these keys to the next, built over the Atlantic 
itself, so bold and staggering a project even in this 
first glimpse that the uppermost emotion of the 
laborers was sheer wonderment. Then followed a 
common feeling of dismay which one of them ex- 
pressed for his fellows in the single remark: 

‘‘It’s a long walk to the 'Bowery, boys.” 

At sunset the train finally halted. Pell-mell, its 
passengers tumbled out and exclaimed more fer- 
vently than ever as they gazed about them.^ The 
track went no further. In front of them, to the 
southward, a half-built trestle stretched its spidery 
length out into the open sea, and in the waning light 
75 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


no land could be seen beyond. Tom Meserve 
laughed aloud and cried: 

^‘Oh, it looks so sweet and clean and big, Jack. 
This is worth coming to see, isn’t it? You knew 
what you were doing. I am glad I came.” 

“It is sure a duck-footed railroad proposition, 
Tommy. But what next, I wonder. Do we swim 
for if? Ho, there she comes. Who could have 
guessed this would turn out to be a yachting excur- 
sion?” 

A stern-wheeled steamer, relic of busier days on 
the Mississippi, was coughing and churning its way 
to a temporary wharf to seaward of the track, and 
at the shouted order the party trooped to meet her. 
The towering cabins and ornate trimmings were 
dingy and shabby, all the brave tinsel, gilt, and glit- 
ter neglected and battered. She seemed a fit craft 
to carry this forlorn ship-load of human relics who 
were herded on board without ceremony. Presently 
the hawsers were cast off and in the fleeting tropical 
twilight the steamer moved slowly away from the 
key, the unfinished trestle indicating her mysterious 
course like a huge finger. 

“There’s five thousand men quartered somewhere 
out yonder,” said Hogan, “though I see nothin’ but 
water and more of it. If we are to be dumped on 
one of these stray bits of rock they call keys I wish 
they’d jack it about ten feet higher above sea-level. 

76 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 


It’s the skimpiest lookin’ real estate for a man that 
can’t swim that ever I looked at. Not that I borrow 
trouble at any stage of the game, but I came down 
here to build a railroad, not to wear meself out 
speculatin’ whether the next high tide is goin’ to 
lug me off to sea feet first.” 

‘‘Wait till a hurricane comes hoppin’ up from the 
West Indies,” gloomily put in a roustabout his 
elbow. “I don’t like the looks of it. I’m goin’ 
back to New York. This is all to the bad.” 

Hogan grinned at recollection of the “white 
slave” head-lines in the yellow journal and replied: 

“Nobody is stopping you. Why don’t you start, 
me bucko?” 

The uneasy sentiment of the roustabout was 
echoed along the crowded upper deck of the Mem- 
phis Queen. Vanishing to rearward of them was 
the railroad and the mainland, and somewhere in 
this uncanny, remote world of ocean and desolate 
islets almost submerged, they were to be dumped 
and marooned. Building a railroad here was some 
kind of a grim, colossal joke. Past one lonely key 
after another the steamer lumbered noisily. The 
trestle had been left far behind. Darkness fell and 
many lights twinkled like fire-flies from the dim 
bits of shore. 

“Those are camps,” said Hogan. “Now you 
know your fate, Tommy. You will be combin’ 
77 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


centipedes from your hair to-morrow morning. And 
you can’t run away this time if you take a no- 
tion.” 

The Freshman was not in a whining mood. The 
bigness of the work caught hold of his imagination. 
This flinging a railroad to Key West, a dot on the 
map nearer Cuba than his own country, was worth 
playing even the humblest part in. Man had 
matched his wit and courage against the might of 
the Atlantic in a splendidly audacious encounter. 
With unwonted earnestness he cried: 

don’t want to run away. Jack. I’ll bet I can 
make a place for myself somewhere, even if I was no 
good where I came from. I suppose we’ll have to 
start in with pick and shovel, but I don’t care.” 

‘‘Good boy. Tommy. Take it as it comes and 
don’t mind the blisters and you and I will get our 
fightin’ chance. There is our happy home yonder. 
The packet is heading for shore.” 

The Memphis Queen slid over a shallow lagoon, 
and her flat bottom grated across the coral reefs as 
she fetched up beside a flimsy wooden pier. Fore- 
men from the camp on shore hurried on board and 
roughly ordered the passengers to disembark and 
form in line on the beach. Hogan and Tom hung 
back and were joined by the tuneful Englishman 
and the agitated old book-keeper. The quartet filed 
to the beach and followed the long column toward 
78 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 


the supply tents, where blankets were served out and 
the men assigned in groups to the canvas sleeping 
quarters arranged along rude streets in which drift- 
wood fires were smouldering. 

The scene was singularly picturesque. To Hogan 
it recalled the camp life of his army days and 
Thomas felt as if he had stumbled across a nest of 
buccaneers of the Spanish Main. The sergeant 
headed toward the beach and chose a small tent 
pitched where the sea breeze gushed cool from the 
nearby lagoon. It was already tenanted but the 
experienced man of action unceremoniously bundled 
the occupants out neck-and-crop and was indifferent 
to their outcry. 

“I say, you have a way with you,’^ drawled the 
Englishman. ‘‘My name is Fitzherbert. Do you 
mind if I join your mess ? Really I can^t stand the 
rest of these swine.’’ 

“Pick the softest palmetto roots and welcome to 
ye,” cordially replied Hogan. “I sized you up in 
the train as the right kind.” 

A small voice arose in the darkness and the book- 
keeper said tremulously: 

“I don’t want to intrude, but is there room for 
me? I have not had time to get my bearings and 
shall be very grateful ” 

“Not another word, Mr. Jones. ’Tis a compli- 
ment to us,” returned the host. “The Hotel de 
79 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Hogan will not turn away any guest that is decent 
and sober, and there will be no great rush at that.” 

The camp was noisy and astir only a little while 
longer. Worn out by the hardships of the long 
journey, the newcomers craved sleep and dropped 
in their tracks as soon as they had found tent room. 
The toilers who had sweated all day with the grad- 
ing gangs were in no mood for late hours and the 
populous key became almost silent. Hogan, who 
was wakeful, heard the Freshman snoring at his side 
and wondered what the morrow had in store for 
the youth so strangely pitchforked into this rough- 
and-tumble field of action. Then the sergeant’s 
thoughts turned to the darkened camp and he said 
to himself : 

‘‘What keeps me awake, I wonder? I know! 
’Tis missing the sentries. I am expecting to hear a 
flat-footed private go poundin’ past me tent. But 
they need no sentries here. These hoboes couldn’t 
desert if they wanted to, being entirely surrounded 
by water and a most amazing lot of it.” 

Hogan poked his head out and blinked at the stars. 
The mosquitoes were troublesome, for the breeze 
was dying, and he had a sudden yearning for a 
whiff or two at his black pipe. His hospitality had 
somewhat crowded the tent and in order to stretch 
his legs and rid himself of the kinks of travel he de- 
cided to amble down to the beach and commune with 
8o 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

his reflections at his ease. Over the white sand the 
tide was lapping in whispering ripples. Toward 
the open sea a bright light winked at regular inter- 
vals, and the soldier thought of the many light- 
houses he had watched gleam their welcomes and 
farewells to the army transports which had carried 
him around the world. Once he sighed heavily, as 
if in his wanderings the light of love had dropped 
below his horizon to shine for him no more. 

Many, many nights of bivouac and trail in hostile 
jungles of the Philippines had made him vigilant 
and quick of ear, intuitively suspicious of whatever 
moved in the darkness. He had been musing and 
walking to and fro longer than he was aware when 
from somewhere along the shrouded key his alert 
hearing noted the soft splash of oars. Some be- 
lated party might be returning from a camp on 
another key, and it was more idle curiosity than any 
other motive that made Hogan saunter quietly in 
that direction. 

The dense, twisted mangrove bushes grew nearer 
the water’s edge as he progressed, and screened the 
shore beyond. Moving quietly as was his habit, 
Hogan wormed along the outer line of this tropical 
undergrowth, becoming more curious and interested, 
for he began to comprehend that it was the intention 
of the men in the boat to make a landing in no frank 
and open fashion. The stealthy drip and splash qf 

8i 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


the oars was drawing nearer, and he could hear a 
murmur of hushed voices in strenuous argument. 

Hogan stepped back into the mangrove thicket 
and was completely ambushed. Presently the craft 
was almost abreast of his hiding-place and he was 
able to discern that she was a small sloop with a 
canvas trunk cabin. Four or five men were plying 
oars and poles with wary deliberation, frequently 
delaying to listen and reconnoitre. During one of 
these pauses Hogan heard the man at the tiller 
mutter angrily: 

‘‘We ain’t gwine no closer to the camp than this, 
I tell you. This is jest where they tole us to wait 
for ’em. I reckon it’s most ten o’clock, ain’t it? 
That’s the time they said they’d sneak down to the 
beach to get the stuff.” 

“Half an hour mo’ to wait by my guess,” said 
another. “We kin go closer ’n this, cap’n. We 
ain’t never run a cargo to this camp and there 
won’t be no guards lookin’ for a booze-boat, nohow. 
The engineer in charge of this here camp is sick 
with fever, they tell me. He won’t be snoopin’ 
around.” 

“Shet up. I’m boss this trip,” snarled the man 
at the tiller. “I’ve been runnin’ booze-boats outen 
Key West since the railroad come to these keys an’ 
they ain’t never ketched me yet. Let your anchor 
down easy, Jerry.” 


82 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

“How much you got aboard?’^ queried a dark 
figure with an oar. 

“Ten cases of quart bottles and twenty dozen pint 
flasks,” answered the “cap’n.” “And talk about 
your whiskey, gem’men. There’s a jolt in every 
swaller, an’ a jag in every gill. They git their 
money’s wuth, you bet.” 

While Hogan listened, his wrath waxed hotter and 
hotter. Aside from his own private and particular 
grudge against rum for what it had done to him in 
other days, he knew better than most men what the 
success of this infernal “booze-boat” would mean 
to the construction camp on the key. Evidently 
smuggling rotten whiskey to the thousands of la- 
borers was an organized traffic. The stuff had 
power to turn the sleeping camp into a hell of fight- 
ing, uproar, and perhaps murder. And the fact that 
the railroad company permitted no saloons on the 
keys accounted for the harrowing tales of hard- 
ships and cruelty which the refugees had given to 
the yellow newspapers in New York. The hu- 
mor of this phase of it stirred Hogan to say to 
himself : 

“There couldn’t be any worse torture for most of 
these ‘white slaves’ than to find ’emselves spraddled 
out on one of these keys with never a drink at all 
for love or money. No wonder they holler for 
vengeance when they hit the Bowery again.” 

83 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Hogan’s duty was clear in his mind. To try to 
board and capture the ‘‘booze-boat” single-handed 
was more than he dared undertake. Most likely 
the smugglers were armed and ready to fight their 
way clear. They must not be allowed to land their 
cargo, however, and this was a rare chance to teach 
them a lesson that would nip the ardor of the other 
ruffians engaged in the traffic. Hogan knew not 
where to muster help in the camp. If the laborers 
got wind of his proposed raid they would muster to 
the defence of the imperilled “booze-boat.” He 
swore by all the gods of war and other deities of his 
vivid vocabulary that there should be a wholesale 
smashing of heads and whiskey bottles, and groped 
a tortuous, cat-footed course through the mangrove 
in the direction of the silent camp. 

When he drew near to his own tent he moved with 
even more care, because he did not wish to arouse 
the Freshman, and wriggling inside, he felt in his 
canvas sack for a Colt’s army revolver. Tom Me- 
serve stirred and asked sleepily: 

“What is it. Jack? I woke up and missed you a 
while ago, and it was dreadfully lonesome without 
you.” 

“Just enjoying the starlight,” whispered the ser- 
geant. “Roll over and pound your ear again.” 

“Are you going out again?” demanded Tom, 
whose eyes were wide open by now. “What’s do- 
84 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

ing? This is such a spooky sort of a place that I 
hate to see you go wandering off.” 

Hogan was perplexed. He wished no harm to 
befall his bunkie, yet the youth would never forgive 
him if he were left out of this adventure. Quickly 
deciding to confide in him, the sergeant told him to 
slip on his shoes and come into the open without 
waking Fitzherbert and Jones. As they walked 
along the lane between the tents Hogan tersely told 
what he had seen and heard, and gave his orders as 
follows: 

“Now, I wouldn’t have anything happen to you 
for worlds, and you must promise to keep clear of 
the ruction. I am thinking of your folks at home, 
understand ? I am going to look for the engineer’s 
head-quarters where the bosses live, bein’ used to 
finding things in dark nights and strange places. 
You sneak down to the beach and along in the bushes 
to your left till you come to a bit of a cove. There 
you stay and watch out if that boat shifts her moor- 
ings. There is no danger. The pirates don’t dare 
come ashore. If you hear men cornin’ down from the 
camp, laborers I mean, don’t let ’em see you. Never 
mind my surprise party. I don’t want you in it.” 

“Oh, please. Jack, I am not sandless. I belong 
with you. Don’t treat me like a baby,” pleaded 
Tom, his knees oddly weak but his voice fairly steady. 
Hogan grasped the Freshman by the shoulders, spun 
8S 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


him about like a top, and shoved him roughly tow- 
ard the beach while he growled in his ear: 

^‘Obey orders. Get to it. It’s high time you 
learned the rudiments of discipline.” 

Thomas moved rapidly nor looked behind him, 
afraid of being pursued and spanked. The sergeant 
strode inland, surmising that the head-quarters of 
the camp must be at some distance from the tents 
of the rank and file. Before long he stumbled over a 
sleepy watchman who was seeking respite from mos- 
quitoes to leeward of a green wood fire or ‘‘smudge,” 
and, heaving this culprit to the feet by his collar, 
Hogan queried indignantly: 

“ On your rounds, are you ? The guard-house for 
yours. Take me to the big boss of this outfit or his 
staff, pronto.'*^ 

“Who — what — the — yes, indeed. What’s wrong ?” 
gasped the watchman as his startled vision took in 
the shadowy bulk of his captor. “Let go of me.” 

“When you deliver the goods,” replied Hogan. 
“I mistrust that you were induced to stay away from 
the beach till ajter ten clock, and you will be giving 
no alarms to your friends afloat, understand?” 

The unhappy prisoner shuddered and ceased to 
squirm, nor could he find courage to frame a defence 
against this shrewd indictment. Soon they came to 
a group of bungalows set in a stately cluster of 
cocoanut palms and the watchman feebly sputtered: 

86 


SINGyLAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

“The division engineer is sick abed. Shall I 
wake him up?” 

“No, he must have some non-coms. Hustle, 
now,” sternly answered Hogan. 

Two foremen and an assistant engineer were 
aroused by the fist of the sergeant beating a violent 
tattoo on their flimsy doors, and at the noise the 
division engineer came out in pajamas, weak of body 
and tremulous of speech but ready to command the 
situation. Hogan saluted and explained: 

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, and may you feel bet- 
ter soon, but I have marked down a booze-boat from 
Key West ready to land an ungodly cargo of whiskey, 
and I want help to capture it. Will ye do me the 
favor of lendin’ me half a dozen good men?” 

“All you want, and thanks,” cried the plucky 
engineer. “The nerve of the scoundrels! Right 
under my nose 1 And I have been bragging that my 
key was clear of them.” 

He stepped inside the door to light a candle and 
thrust it close to Hogan’s face. 

“Who the deuce are you?” was the amazed inter- 
rogation. “I thought you were one of the watch- 
men.” 

“I arrived with to-night’s excursion party — one 
seventy-five per day, sir,” grinned the soldier. 
“John Hogan, if you please, late sergeant Ninth 
U. S. Infantry. I came across the whiskey runners 
87 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


by accident. I know what the stuff will do to a camp 
of hard men. ’Tis me mortal foe. What’s the orders, 
sir ?” 

There was sincere gratification in the voice of the 
engineer as he replied: 

Sergeant Hogan, you are to take command. 
Sorry, but I am too seedy to risk it myself. Here, 
McGuire and Davenport, find some men you can 
trust. Hurley, trot over and fetch two or three 
sticks of dynamite from the cut. The shot-guns are 
locked in the tool-house. Blow ’em out of water if 
you can. Hogan here has earned the right to lead 
you, and you will agree with me there. Good luck. 
I shall be waiting for news.” 

‘‘A man after me own heart,” said Hogan to Fore- 
man McGuire as they began to muster their little 
force. “He didn’t waste a word. And he gives us 
dynamite for ammunition. Why, this beats war! 
‘Booze-boats’ are unpopular with him, eh?” 

“The sight of one big drunk in this camp ’ud 
convince you that he is right,” vouchsafed McGuire. 
“The law is no good to us here. I advise you to 
take him at his word and toss the dynamite sticks 
aboard if we can sneak close enough.” 

Soberly elated was the heart of Jack Hogan. 
What a splendid stroke of luck! The engineer had 
known a good man at sight, even by candle-light! 
And here was a piece of work precisely to his taste. 

88 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 


God was indeed good to the Irish, and this was pro- 
motion already. As for the foremen, they bore him 
no ill will for being put in charge of the expedition, 
viewing it as a soldier’s duty. At his suggestion 
they made a detour of the camp and scrambled 
across the ledges of limestone and coral in order to 
attract no attention. The hour lacked but a few 
minutes of ten and the possibility of a clash with the 
laborers who had agreed to meet the booze-boat” 
was imminent. 

Hogan had begun to worry for the safety of the 
Freshman. The soldier had been on fire with the 
joyous excitement of his own enterprise but now 
that he was of a cooler and steadier mind he feared 
lest he might have sent Thomas on a fool’s errand. 
How was the boy to distinguish friend from foe? 
To post off in the darkness on outpost duty was the 
most matter-of-fact business for a man like Hogan, 
and perhaps he had hastily taken too much for 
granted in the case of the raw and untried youth who 
had never faced a situation in the least resembling 
this. 

The attacking party crept along the edge of the 
strip of beach, picked a way among the mangrove 
roots, and came to ‘the tiny cove where Thomas had 
been ordered to wait as a lone sentinel. Hogan 
halted and looked in vain for his young comrade. 
Then he whistled very softly and listened, painfully 
89 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


expectant, with a sharp sense of dread and appre- 
hension. Creeping forward on hands and knees he 
peered beyond the bight of the shore-line toward the 
place where he had last seen the boat and where he 
had hidden himself. The dim outline of the sloop^s 
hull had vanished and her slender mast no longer 
cut a black line athwart the starry sky. 

Hogan rubbed his eyes and reproached himself 
under his breath. Unable to realize that the craft 
had stolen away, he told the others to stay where 
they were while he moved ahead of them. Presently 
he stumbled over the stranded log upon which he 
had sat and listened to the talk of the crew of the 
boat. She was no longer there nor could he any- 
where discern a shadow moving across the placid 
lagoon, nor hear the faintest sound of oars or creak- 
ing blocks. The outlaws had taken alarm and flown 
or else the militant temperance expedition of Ser- 
geant Hogan had come too late to the rendezvous. 
The latter conjecture was almost instantly discarded; 
for there was a noise of moving men to rearward of 
him and then he heard a tumult of surprised shouts 
and maledictions. 

The sergeant ploughed his way back to the scene 
and found that his men had intercepted the course of 
the laborers from the camp and were engaged in 
making them prisoners without sparing fists and gun 
butts. It was a lively scrimmage, soon finished, and 
90 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

as the disappointed, thirsty laborers were kicked and 
hustled toward their tents, Foreman . McGuire de- 
claimed to Hogan: 

“It will be some satisfaction to line up these 
thirsty dogs and learn who they are. They will be 
sick of this night^s work before we are done with ^em. 
Our engineer is making a record for grading and fill- 
ing on this key, and a few rum-soaks would put the 
camp on the bum, would they, and make us a black 
disgrace before all the other gangs between Bahia 
Honda and the mainland!” 

“Another horrible outrage for the New York 
papers,” said Hogan. “I will go with you as far 
as head-quarters and report to the boss, and then I 
must hot-foot it back to me tent to make sure my 
young bunkie has found his way home. He lays 
heavy on my mind, for I can^t understand why he 
was not at the cove to tip us off that the boat had 
slipped away.” 

The sergeant ran toward the beach at full speed, 
a prey to grievous misgivings, berating himself for 
having permitted Thomas to take part in the ad- 
venture. Alas, he found no Freshman in the tent, 
and rudely arousing the others he fiercely demanded 
of Fitzherbert: 

“Have ye seen the lad? Didn’t he come back to 
bed at all?” 

“My word, what is the row?” snorted the sleepy 
91 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Briton in great bewilderment. “I was dreaming of 
a jolly good dinner at the Savoy and you chivvied 
me out of at least three courses, by Jove. Is the 
boy mislaid, do you say? No, old chap, I can’t 
account for him.” 

‘'Then turn out and help me find him,” command- 
ed Hogan. “No, thank you, Mr. Jones. Better stay 
here. I don’t want to lose you, too.” 

The book-keeper was nervously fumbling with his 
buttons but before he could get himself together, 
Hogan and Fitzherbert were running up the street 
of tents to assemble a searching party. McGuire 
was discerned through a lighted window of the divi- 
sion engineer’s bungalow and the sergeant knocked 
and entered with brief apology: 

“It goes against me to trouble a sick man, sir,” he 
breathlessly exclaimed, “but I don’t know where 
else to turn for help. I fetched a fine lad down here 
with me to make a man of him and he is missing, sir. 
He was doing sentry forninst the booze-boat and I 
mistrust they got away with him somehow.” 

“Take some lanterns, McGuire,” said the engineer. 
“Wake up the crews of both launches. The search- 
lights may be of use. But it’s almost hopeless to 
try to overhaul the booze-boat among the keys at 
night. If you don’t find the young man, tell the 
skipper of the Bonita launch to run to Key West, 
and you go with him. Report the case to the author- 

92 


SINGULAR DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS 

ities there and try to head the rascals off before they 
make port.’’ 

Alas, the seekers beat up and down the shore in 
vain and the launches cruised until long after mid- 
night, playing their search-lights over the dark 
water and the white beaches and the fringing thickets 
of mangrove. Thomas Winthrop, as he was entered 
upon the pay-roll of the camp, had vanished without 
trace of any kind. The sergeant had no thought 
of sleep, and daylight found him still ransacking 
the cove and the undergrowth, haggard, despairing, 
his heart filled with sorrow and remorse. 


93 


CHAPTER VI 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 

The Freshman had set out for his post of duty 
in a heady and high-stepping mood. Jack Hogan 
was the man to follow through thick and thin, 
thought he, and here were hazard and adventure 
right on the first page of the opening chapter of their 
comradeship. With beating heart he prowled along 
the beach, moving more slowly as he lost sight of 
the camp, taking alarm at the splashing ripple of 
the incoming tide. At length he came to the cove 
and halted, his nerves twitching while he strove to 
see into the gloom beyond. He could discern noth- 
ing that resembled a boat but he fancied that the 
light breeze brought to his ears the low murmur of 
voices. Unless he could hide himself nearer, the 
boat might slip away without his knowledge. 

Tom was a novice at this kind of scouting duty 
and it appeared easy to pick a path through the man- 
grove and safeguard his mission against the chance 
of fiasco. The interlaced roots were like a series of 
traps and pitfalls, however, and their long tentacles 
94 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 


were slippery with the slime and wash of the tide. 
To his immense disgust the Freshman found him- 
self almost helpless, groping, tripping, cutting his 
hands and tearing his clothes on the clusters of 
raccoon-oyster shells that clung to the mangrove 
roots. The leafage overhead made the labyrinth 
densely dark, and it was impossible to move without 
clumsy struggling that was far from silent. Thomas 
tried to swerve toward the beach, anything to get 
clear of this half-submerged jungle, and suddenly 
found himself sprawled out upon a mesh of pendu- 
lous branches which creaked and swayed. Rub- 
bing the mud from his eyes he could see the anchored 
“booze-boat” some distance beyond. There were 
signs of alarm on board. Men were moving hur- 
riedly to and fro, and the Freshman heard confused 
sounds of orders and warnings. One voice louder 
than the rest stormily exclaimed: 

“I tell you somebody was thrashin’ through the 
mangrove yonder. And it ain’t none of our friends, 
for we ain’t heard no whistle like we fixed up as a 
signal. Mebbe there’s guards out after all. I don’t 
pine for no load of buckshot in my innards. Heave 
that anchor aboard, Jerry, an’ git out the oars. 
Stand by the jib halliard. Bill. Now, shet up and 
listen good.” 

Thomas had forgotten that breathing was con- 
sidered necessary to sustain life, but he held his 
95 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


breath no more desperately than he clutched the 
branches upon which he was spread-eagled in this 
most unhappy plight. His weight was bending the 
fragile supports lower and lower, making it more 
difficult to retreat by the way he had come. And 
to advance was to land himself upon the open shore, 
a fair target for the men in the boat. While he was 
miserably wondering what could be done, the issue 
was snatched from his keeping. Shifting his weight 
to brace himself more securely, the overburdened 
branches tilted and snapped and his hands slid 
vainly along their slimy surfaces for a fresh grip. 
The law of gravity abruptly took charge of the fate 
of Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Jr., and with a cry 
of fright he slipped headlong and plunged into the 
shallow water, full tilt against the ragged coral reef. 
Even as he lunged downward he flung his arms out 
to save his head from striking, but the impact was 
so violent that he was stunned and could only floun- 
der, in feeble, instinctj^ve fashion, to raise his face 
above the water that%as strangling him. 

The crew of the booze-boat ’’ heard the startling 
commotion and were for instant flight, but their 
leader cried with a crackling volley of oaths: 

“He fell in and hurt himself. Hear him splashin’ 
like a turtle in a crawl? Served him right. I 
reckon he^s drowndin’ sure ffiough. ’Tain’t none 
of our business.^’ 


96 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 


‘H’d put a load of shot into him to make sure/^ 
growled another, “but we don’t allow to make no 
more racket than we can help. How about his 
cornin’ to and going back to camp? He may have 
been there long enough to know us if he sees us 
again.” 

“Oh, cut it out. Murder goes agin my stum- 
mick,” spoke up a third. “We ain’t afraid of the 
courts. No Key West jury ever found a Conch 
guilty of booze-runnin’ yit, and I’m goin’ to fish that 
cuss aboard. We can dump him ashore somewhere 
else and keep his mouth shet till we get clear of the 
keys.” 

The skipper objected, but his men sided with the 
soft-hearted person aforesaid, and two of them waded 
toward Thomas, who had been struggling more and 
more feebly while this argument raged. When 
picked up by the feet and shoulders he was at the 
last gasp and wholly unconscious. Bundling him 
into the cockpit of the sloop, ^the whiskey runners 
dragged the limp, pitiable figure forward out of their 
way and let him lie between the centreboard well 
and the canvas wall of the tiny cabin. They dared 
not make a light to ascertain how badly he was hurt, 
and were presently mightily busied with their own 
affairs; for from the shore toward the camp there 
arose the uproar of men embroiled in a dire quarrel, 
and the skipper exclaimed: 

97 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


“There’ll be no booze landed to-night. The jig is 
up. Our pals are in trouble, an’ this key is too hot 
for us. Hoist jib and mainsail. Heave hard on 
them oars. Do you want a stick o’ dynamite flyin’ 
aboard?” 

The sloop shot away from the shore, fled for the 
nearest channel between the keys, and once in open 
water caught sufficient breeze from seaward to make 
her heel with tautened sheets. Instead of heading 
for the wide spaces of the Hawk Channel and the 
quickest route for Key West, she dodged in among 
the maze of keys until her trail would have been 
difficult to find by daylight. 

The crew watched the search-lights of the en- 
gineer’s launches pencil the dark sky-line in random, 
bootless quest. Pursuit was a jest in this game of 
hide-and-seek. Presently the youth in the canvas 
cabin called attention to himself by incoherent, 
fevered murmuring. The man who had insisted 
that he be taken aboard crawled forward with a 
lighted lantern in his fist and called back : 

“He is bloodied up powerful bad, cap’n. I 
reckon he stove his head against the reef. Where 
you goin’ to take him to? He’ll sit up and kick 
before long, and you don’t want him to look us over 
by daylight.” 

The skipper ducked under the cabin roof and 
said peevishly: 


98 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 


“We ought to ha’ left him where he was. I aim 
to get shet of him right soon. How about settin’ 
him ashore on Little Spanish Key? He won’t find 
his own camp in a hurry, and we’ll have plenty o’ 
time to git under cover and run this stuff ashore 
somehow. It ain’t likely he’ll remember whatever 
did happen to him to-night.” 

“There ain’t nobody livin’ on Little Spanish, is 
there?” asked the other. “There wa’n’t when I 
went by there last winter.” 

V “It’s nice and lonesome,” returned the skipper. 
“But some sponger or fisherman’ll most likely take 
him off before he turns up his toes. Anyhow, the 
dog-goned fool is in my way, and he ought to thank 
me for not leaving him to feed the sharks. I’m soft- 
hearted as mush, I am.” 

Thomas heard fragments of this talk as if the 
voices were a great way off. He could not under- 
stand why Jack Hogan was not with him. His head 
throbbed with the most torturing pulsations and all 
strength seemed to have left him. Unresistingly he 
was moved into the cock-pit and propped against the 
coaming, while the most humane of the ruffians 
sponged his head with salt water and bade him take 
heart. 

A little later the sloop turned from the winding 
channel and was hove to close to the low shore of 
Little Spanish Key. Two men picked up the Fresh- 
99 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


man, waded to the beach with him, and left him 
lying beside a stunted tree above high-water mark, 
for all the world like a marooned buccaneer. The 
friendly rascal of the crew shortly returned with a 
small breaker of fresh water, a bottle of their vil- 
lainous whiskey, and a basket of odds and ends of 
food. 

The coolness of the dawn had fled and the summer 
sun was blazing high in the sky when Thomas Me- 
serve sat up, gazed about him, and limited his re- 
marks to a most emphatic “Ouch.” His head still 
ached violently, every muscle had its own particular 
twinge, and he felt as weak as an infant in arms. 
At twenty years, however, a healthy youth can stand 
a deal of banging and his skull is not easily cracked 
beyond repair. Wherefore before he began to take 
^ stock of his woes this derelict swigged long at the 
water keg, topped it off with a heartening nip at the 
black bottle, and munched hardtack and a stringy 
• fragment of ham with great zest. Bit by bit the 
events of the amazing night were pieced together, 
but of his voyage in the “booze-boat” his recollec- 
tions were hopelessly befogged. He had been kid- 
napped and dumped upon a strange shore, this 
much was fairly obvious. But where was the key 
from which he had been snatched by force? 

His smarting eyes beheld one low, ragged islet 
after another lying awash in almost every direction, 

lOO 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 


between them the marvellous green and blue and 
violet sea stretching in crooked channels, wide 
lagoons, and sparkling inlets. Far to the eastward 
glimmered a pearly fleck of sail, but the nearby 
waters were empty of craft. The castaway turned 
to survey his desert island and muttered disgust- 
edly: 

‘Hf this is a bad dream, it is positively the worst 
ever. I wish Jack Hogan would roll over and kick 
me wide awake. Hum, more water-soaked scenery 
— millions of long-legged bushes just like I tumbled 
out of last night — and that is about all. Did I ever 
say anything about looking for adventures ? Excuse 
meP 

Leaning heavily against the tree beneath which 
he had found himself, Thomas, the sorrowful knight- 
errant, descried a clump of tall pines rising from 
the further end of the key and wisely concluded that 
higher and dryer land must lie in that quarter. 
There was drift-wood lodged in the mangrove growth, 
some of it six feet higher than the beach, and the 
Freshman cared not to wait where he was until the 
next tide, lest it might confirm this ominous hint. 
Taking off his leather belt he looped it around the 
little water keg, slung the ends over his shoulder, 
and found that he could manage to carry the food 
basket with the other hand, not forgetting to tuck 
the bottle therein in case of urgent need. 

lOI 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Before getting under way he washed his head in 
the tepid salt water, and knotted his handkerchief 
around it to cover the scalp wound, which had ceased 
to bleed. Then wearily dragging one foot after the 
other, Thomas moved toward the landmark of the 
distant pine trees, his progress impeded by the loath- 
some luxuriance of the mangrove thicket. It was a 
heart-breaking kind of a struggle, and more than 
once he lost heart and slumped down in his tracks. 
Strength and courage were at lowest ebb when he 
came to firmer footing and a grateful carpeting of 
wire-grass in which sprawled clusters of dwarfed, 
saw-toothed palmetto. There was relief also from 
the stifling, choking heat of the jungle, and from the 
maddening insects which h^d filled the swamp. 
The exhausted pilgrim flopped down in the grass 
and lay with his head upon his arm. 

There was no shade from the blistering sun, how- 
ever, and the refugee dragged himself to his feet a 
little later and tottered onward, hoping to reach the 
distant haven of the trees and fashion a rude camp, 
although his knowledge of woodcraft was very mea- 
gre. He was an object to frighten and repel a re- 
spectable person if such there had been to observe 
him. Shirt and trousers were tom and splotched 
with mud and blood, and his countenance, unshaven 
for several days, was scratched and stained, while 
the grimy handkerchief knotted about his temples 
102 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 


lent a truly piratical touch to his singularly dis- 
reputable and forbidding aspect. In college Thomas 
had been scrupulously particular in such matters 
and the class-mates who had called him “the natty 
boy” would have utterly failed to identify him in 
his present plight. Not that he cared, for life had 
resolved itself into the elemental struggle for sur- 
vival in which tailors and haberdashers are of no 
account whatever. 

Having taken it for granted that the key was un- 
inhabited, the Freshman came at length to a bit of 
rising ground and, propping his weary frame against 
a pine tree, gazed at a small clearing, a low-roofed 
cottage consisting mostly of wide verandas, and a 
wharf running out over a sheltered lagoon. The 
castaway was giddy and dazed by fatigue and hurts, 
and for the moment he could hardly credit his blink- 
ing vision. Mechanically clinging to his keg and 
basket, he stumbled down the slope, and drew near 
to a solidly constructed fence of barbed wire, the 
topmost strand considerably higher than his head. 

This forbidding barrier ran far out into the water 
at one end and appeared to stretch around the 
clearing with no sign of a gate. Thomas looked in 
vain for tenants who might respond to his distress 
signals. He could think of nothing better to do 
than plod along outside the circuit of this cruel, im- 
passable fence and curse the inhumanity of man. 
103 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


The place was not deserted. The pineapple patch 
and garden had been recently cultivated. Ham- 
mocks swung in shaded recesses of the verandas, 
which were carefully screened against mosquitoes. 
A sail-boat and power-launch were moored near 
the wharf. A huge black cat strolled out from under 
a guava bush and insolently yawned at the wistful 
youth who was very near to weeping. 

At length his progress was abruptly checked. 
Facing him was a sign-board nailed to a post a few 
feet outside the fence. Its lettering was bold and 
black and the message was startling, portentous: 


STRANGERS BEWARE ! 

THIS PLACE IS SET WITH SPRING- 
GUNS AND STEEL MAN-TRAPS. 


Great Heavens,’’ cried Thomas, his voice shrill 
with abject terror as if he had barely missed setting 
foot on a rattlesnake. Wheeling in headlong panic, 
he had bolted no more than a stride or two away 
from the fence when his foot was caught by a wire 
hidden in the grass. As he tripped and fell forward 
with no chance to save himself, a stunning report 
crashed in his ears, the smell of powder smoke was 
in his nostrils, and a jarring concussion seemed to 
pitch him to earth with tremendous violence. Dur- 
104 


A PERILOUS HAVEN 


ing the instant of consciousness, before he ceased to 
think and feel, Thomas knew that he had been am- 
bushed and slain by a spring-gun. Then he lay as 
he had fallen, huddled, limp, inert. 


CHAPTER VII 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 

The lethal weapon had gone off with a prodigious 
bang, shattering the dreamy quiet of the tropical 
clearing and the placid lagoon. A moment later, 
three persons rushed out of the cottage. The fore- 
most of them was a girlish figure in white. Behind 
her lumbered a man of imposing girth and a crimson 
countenance who was bawling commands at the top 
of his voice. An elderly negro advanced more 
slowly, wringing his hands and uttering broken, fer- 
vent prayers as if he expected to behold a tragedy. 
The girl, who ran swiftly yet without awkwardness 
of gait, became hesitant as she neared the fence and 
gazed fearfully beyond. Catching a glimpse of the 
crumpled figure of the victim of the spring-gun as 
he lay in the grass, she gasped, halted in her tracks, 
and turned to cry in accents of grievous consternation : 

‘^Oh, oh, father, what did I tell you? You have 
killed a man with your dreadful thing-um-a-bob. 
He is just as dead as he can be. I saw him. Go 
around to the gate, quick. You too, Levi. Bring 
io6 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 

him into the house. I knew it would happen some 
day.” 

The portly parent was disobedient and tiptoed to 
the fence, where he puffed for breath. Then while 
the ruddy richness of his complexion perceptibly 
paled, he sputtered: 

“I — I — guess he is done for, Helen. It was an 
accident, I swear it was. The confounded thing 
never would go off before, you know that. It — it 
was perfectly harmless. Maybe he isn’t as dead as 
he looks, after all. Come, Levi. We shall have to 
carry him.” 

The speaker trotted heavily toward the other side 
of the clearing, followed by the reluctant negro, who 
was mumbling, while his eyes rolled heavenward : 

“Good Lawd, please, oh, please, don’t ’low me 
to be hung by mah neck till I’se daid. ’Deed I did- 
n’t set none of dem murderin’ contraptions, an’ I 
ain’t killed nobody.” 

While these two sought the gate, the girl remained 
at the fence, as if fascinated and aghast, gazing at 
the ragged figure in the grass whose face was hidden. 
She noted the little water keg, the basket, and the 
black bottle, and murmured: 

“One of those dreadful tramps from the railroad 
camps. He had run away and was prowling around 
our place. Of course, he intended to rob us and 
maybe kill us all to-night. Yet I cannot help feel- 
107 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ing dreadfully sorry for him. Dear father is so obsti- 
nate and he would insist on planting these infernal 
machines. I thought they were harmless until now.^’ 

She was too well poised and vigorous to become 
hysterical, although it was by no means a common oc- 
currence to have total strangers potted near her 
door-yard in this very hasty fashion. Could the 
unfortunate Freshman have surveyed her very win- 
some aspect, more than likely he would have clean 
forgotten that he had just been blown from the muz- 
zle of a spring-gun. In fact, one glimpse of her 
might have sufficed to make him grateful for the 
lamentable sequence of disasters that had brought 
him to this deplorable situation. He was totally 
oblivious of all things, however, and apparently as 
dead as the proverbial herring, which tactless per- 
formance agitated the stout gentleman a good deal 
more than his blustering manner had revealed. 

The rescue party lugged the alleged corpse through 
the distant gate with much difficulty and laid it, or 
him, upon a cot in a small, unused room of the cot- 
tage, somewhat removed from the living quarters by 
a breezy interval of veranda. In falling, the late 
Thomas Winthrop Meserve had caused his scalp 
wound to bleed afresh and after a hasty, tremulous 
survey of the remains, his slayer concluded that the 
spring-gun had blown out his brains. This was so 
depressing a verdict that Mr. Stephen Eastabrook 

io8 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


sat down hastily, mopped his perspiring brow, and 
blurted to his daughter, who had joined him: 

‘‘Bless me, Helen, the damnable machine was so 
rusty that it simply couldnH go off. What am I 

going to do with this — with this — this — er 

Mr. Eastabrook gulped, lost color, and went on, 
“with this unfortunate person? Of course, he is a 
fugitive, homeless and friendless, probably a worth- 
less, drunken scoundrel, for whom no search what- 
ever will be made. It was a hideous accident, and 
— and there are no other witnesses. Need there be 
any publicity?” 

His fair young daughter lost her temper and flung 
back as she fled in search of first-aid-to-the-injured : 

“You talk as if you were perfectly willing to bury 
him alive. One might think I had an inhuman 
monster for a father. If you and Levi are too 
frightened to do anything, I will try my best to bring 
him to life.” 

She raised her voice in peremptory command and 
the negro servant showed himself, although most 
unwillingly. He was sent scurrying after water and 
bandages while the ministering angel ransacked the 
medicine cupboard, unable to decide what house- 
hold remedies were best suited to mend a patient 
who had been bagged by a spring-gun at point- 
blank range. This delicate problem was solved by 
the victim himself, who sat up in the cot without 
109 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

warning, wrathfully shook his fist at the quaking 
Mr. Eastabrook, and remarked in weak but emphatic 
tones: 

“You tried to kill me, confound you, but you never 
touched me. I fainted, no wonder, but I came to 
while you were figuring how to dispose of my corpse. 
I heard you. Of all the cold-blooded ’’ 

“I beg your pardon,” gasped the gentleman ad- 
dressed, and then he repeated the apology with 
tremendous solemnity, “I — beg — your — pardon. 
Really, this is a most delightful surprise. Are you 
sure you are not shot all to pieces? Oh, Helen, 
come here, quick, and bring me a drink of brandy, 
if you love me.” 

The daughter rushed into the room and at sight of 
the astonishing tableau dropped an armful of bottles, 
including witch-hazel, ammonia, and arnica, which 
smashed in common min. For the first time she 
perceived that the stranger was young, and that if 
his face were washed he would not be unpleasant to 
look at. In other words, the fact that he was indu- 
bitably alive shifted her point of view, and awakened 
a different kind of interest. Recollecting, however, 
that as a scamp of lowest degree he deserved no more 
than charity, she cried with some asperity: 

“What do you mean by scaring us all to death? 
But you have been hurt. Your head is bleeding. 
Hurry with that water, Levi.” 

no 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


Tom Meserve fingered his scalp with considerable 
alarm, eyed the girl admiringly, and huskily replied: 

“That is another story. I hate to be a nuisance, 
but is it a bad cut ? I can^t see it, you know. And 
if it ought to be sewed up, I suppose I’ll have to 
borrow a needle and thread and catch up with my 
darning.” 

The patient was swaying as he made this brave 
speech, after which he fell back and lay with eyes 
closed, too weak for more bravado. He had flared 
up for the moment like a candle in a puff of breeze 
but the effort had overtaxed his slender store of 
vitality. So near was he to losing consciousness 
again that he failed to hear the elated Helen ex- 
claiming to her agitated parent: 

“Wasn’t he spunky? And he is nothing but a 
boy, father. I shall try to mend his head at once. 
Just you keep perfectly cool and help me all you can.” 

“A desperate-looking boy — old enough to pack 
along a quart whiskey bottle — and big enough to 
knock us in the head and loot the house if he had the 
chance,” grumbled he. “I shall send Levi over to 
the chief engineer’s head-quarters in the launch and 
ask him to send after this runaway hobo of theirs.” 

Miss Helen stamped her foot and frowned as she 
returned, most decisively: 

“You will do nothing of the kind until this poor, 
wounded fugitive is able to walk. I never dreamed 

III 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


I had such a brute of a father. There, hold this 
basin of water and keep perfectly quiet while I cleanse 
this cut on his head. It is more bump than any- 
thing else. Plaster will do nicely. When I have 
finished, you are to fetch some of your clean clothes 
and Levi will put him in bed. He did not talk in 
the least like a hobo, and his face is really quite nice 
and refined.’’ 

Mr. Eastabrook sighed explosively, cowed by his 
youthful daughter who had assumed command of 
the situation. A few minutes later she retired from 
the scene after issuing further orders with notable 
hauteur. Thomas was carefully ministered to and 
tucked into bed by the rejoicing Levi, who believed 
that he had escaped the gallows by a hair’s-breadth. 
The young man slept heavily, hour after hour, in a 
kind of dreamless stupor, and the following morning 
had come before he sufficiently rallied to renew his 
interest in the surroundings. Then he was recalled 
to himself by a delightful ffash of memory and his 
lips moved in the pious reffection: 

‘^Goodness gracious, but I am in luck. I never 
had much time for the girl proposition, but this is 
different. She is an angel and a corker! I suppose 
the old man will throw me out before I have a chance 
to see her again.” 

Just then Levi entered and laid upon a chair the 
raiment belonging to the disreputable guest, every 

II2 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


garment washed, mended, and pressed, a deed of 
mercy which fairly astounded Thomas, who spoke 
his almost tearful gratitude. 

Don’t thank me. It was Miss Helen what toP 
me to fix yo’ things all ship-shape,” replied the negro. 
‘^Of course, I knows you is po’ white trash an’ don’t 
look fo’ no sich treatment, but Miss Helen is sof’- 
hearted that-a-way. An’ we all is sure thankin’ 
our Maker fo’ not fillin’ yo’ system plumb full o’ 
buckshot. My orders is to give you breakfas’ in 
bed an’ ask you is you still alive an’ kickin’.” 

“I am not kicking so you would notice it,” said 
Tommy, smiling with no resentment at being called 
‘‘poor white trash,” for he perceived that Levi had 
his own dignity to safeguard. “But I am afraid I 
shall not feel like moving on my way for several days. 
I am very weary and my head is a merry-go-round. 
Please tell the young lady that I thank her with all 
my heart and most humbly apologize for keeling 
over before I was hit and making such a footless 
nuisance of myself. I was never trained to be 
shot over by spring-guns, Levi.” 

“Well, I do declare, yo’ conversation am right 
elegant an’ scrumptious,” exclaimed the old servant, 
who asked with childish eagerness, “Is you in dis- 
guise, please, suh? I kin keep a secret shet up 
tight in mah breas’. There ain’t no railroad hands 
in dese keys what talks that-a-way, there sure ain’t.” 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘Your failure to appreciate me at my true worth 
is a pardonable error. I shall not consider it a mis- 
demeanor/’ impressively commented Thomas, think- 
ing to bombard Levi while he had him on the defen- 
sive. 

“Mistah Eastabrook hisself ’ud have to rise bright 
an’ early to beat that ’sortment o’ language,” cried 
Levi. “How’d a couple o’ fresh aigs an’ a col’ 
grapefruit an’ a dab of guava jelly an’ hot biscuit 
tickle yo’ palate dis mawnin’, suh? When I was 
mendin’ yo’ clo’es I had mah s’picions that maybe 
you was used to wearin’ good clo’es. Now I knows 
it.” 

Levi bobbed his white head with well-trained cour- 
tesy and ambled to the kitchen, chuckling and talk- 
ing to himself, as if he had shrewdly fathomed a 
secret of vast importance. As for Thomas himself, 
he had no intention of confessing that he was a 
truant, a failure, and a bit of human flotsam. His 
was no heroic tale to win favor in the eyes of a 
maiden, and his brief comradeship with Jack Hogan 
had given him more manly fibre. Thus far he had 
not even proved himself capable of earning the wages 
of a common laborer. With the unquenchable opti- 
mism of youth he expected to hammer out a sturdy 
career, but he was still a sorry kind of a joke. 

As his mind cleared, he began to wonder what 
and who this father and his lovely young daughter 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


could be. They, too, must have suffered misfortune 
to be living on one of these tropical keys in the sum- 
mer time. They were not natives, of this much he 
was sure, and the impetuous Mr. Eastabrook must 
have made a wreck of things somewhere else, or he 
would not thus have marooned himself and his 
daughter in this mosquito-cursed pineapple patch. 
Thomas meditated at great length for lack of any- 
thing better to do, until he was diverted by over- 
hearing a dialogue wafted from the veranda. The 
lord of the cottage was emphatic and his daughter 
was insistent. 

fortified the place to keep out those railroad 
ruffians,” Mr. Eastabrook was saying. “I had to do 
it in self-defence. And now that I have laid one of 
them by the heels, the thing to be done is to get rid 
of him as soon as possible. You and old Levi have 
lost your wits, Helen. What if he does show a few 
signs of refinement? So much the worse for him. 
You can find every known kind of outcast among the 
riffraff on these keys.” 

“But he is no older than I,” she protested. “And 
I am quite sure he is harmless. Levi says that he 
is grateful, and expressed himself in such a pretty, 
gentlemanly way. I don’t want to adopt him, but 
I think we ought to take care of him until he is strong 
enough to return to work. Goodness knows we 
have few enough visitors, father, and I have been a 
115 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


meek and dutiful child in exile. Can’t I have him to 
play with for a little while, if he passes your inspec- 
tion? You can trust Levi to know ‘quality folks’ 
every time.” 

Mr. Eastabrook grunted and rejoined with much 
heat: 

“Helen, you are simply preposterous. You are 
to have nothing whatever to do with this young 
vagabond. And I shall put him ashore at the near- 
est camp to-morrow. The railroad has its own 
hospitals and the engineers take the best possible 
care of their men.” 

The stubborn and hard-hearted parent moved 
beyond earshot, and Thomas Meserve wore a sor- 
rowful countenance. He had heard enough to con- 
vince him that he was to be expelled from this Eden, 
thrown out neck and crop, and turned adrift in dis- 
grace. Making the best of his disappointment, he 
said to himself with a very wry face: 

“Of course I was going to be on my way as soon 
as I could toddle. I belong with Jack Hogan and 
I must find him. But I don’t even know the name 
of the key I left him on. And how am I to discover 
my own camp if there are five thousand men scat- 
tered along a hundred miles of these chunks of coral ? 
Mr. Eastabrook may know his own game, but after 
wrecking my nervous system he might be less hasty 
in kicking me into the middle of next week.” 

ii6 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


Later in the day Levi shuffled in to inform the 
unwelcome guest that Mr. Eastabrook had taken his 
daughter for an afternoon^s fishing in the launch, at 
which cheerless tidings Thomas said: 

‘‘I seem to be rather unpopular with the family. 
I thought perhaps Miss Helen might look in before 
night.” 

‘^She ain’t gwine to git no chance, suh. I heard 
him tell her down on th’ wharf to keep ’way from 
you entirely, an’ he was powerful mad ’bout it, too. 
I reckon she’s been argufyin’ some mo’ wid him.” 

‘^Well, then, if I am to disturb the family peace, 
why should I linger longer?” quoth the youth. “A 
day’s rest and your excellent home cooking have 
made a new man of me, Levi. And between us, if 
I cannot see Miss Helen again, it is back to the gal- 
leys for mine. But I shall return some day, don’t 
forget to tell her that.” 

‘^You mean you gwine fly th’ coop right soon, 
boss?” 

‘^Yes, if you can carry me to the nearest camp in 
the sail-boat. I’ll set out this afternoon. I am not 
fit for work but perhaps I can keep moving long 
enough to find quarters somewhere.” 

Levi scratched his head with a dubious air and 
tactfully replied : 

‘^Of course, we don’t aim to be dishospitable, but 
you ain’t a regular guest, an’ the boss is almighty 
117 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


sot in his ways an’ sho’ hard to budge. Th’ skeeters, 
an’ bein’ poor an’ trustin’ to pineapples for his livin’, 
has made him techy. Mebbe he’ll be mo’ happier 
if yo’ leaves him yo’ regards an’ yo’ compliments an’ 
has impo’tant ingagements elsewhar.” 

^^May I write a note of thanks to Miss Easta- 
brook?” asked Thomas, somewhat chagrined by 
Levi’s ready compliance. 

‘‘Suttinly, suh. Yo’ manners an’ yo’ feelin’s do 
you proud. Th’ sail-boat ’ll be ready when you is.” 

‘Tt looks to me like a put-up job, ” reflected 
Thomas while Levi went in search of stationery. “I 
am willing to bet that Mr. Eastabrook left orders to 
get rid of me this afternoon, while he carried her off 
out of range. Levi was all primed and waiting. 
Well, I can’t help myself, but I am coming back some 
day if I have to swim for it.” 

It was a disconsolate young exile that meekly made 
ready to let Levi help him walk down to the wharf 
after writing a farewell in this wise: 

My dear Miss Helen Eastabrook: 

It is awfully nervy for a rufi&an of a railroad hand to dare 
to address you, but you have been so good to me that I cannot 
help telling you how much it has meant to me. As your father 
sized me up, I am really down and out and belong with the 
hoboes, but I did not run away from my camp, and I had no 
intention of looting your house or your pineapple patch. I 
do think he was a little hasty in his judgment, and also reck- 

ii8 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 

less with his artillery, but my father is built very much the 
same way, and parents are sometimes rather difficult to handle, 
don’t you think? I heard you standing up for me in great 
shape, and it made me feel better than finding a million dol- 
lars. You are just as good as you are beautiful, and that is 
about as strong as I can put it. I am ashamed to sign my 
real name, after making such a mess of things generally, and 
please believe me to be, with no end of admiration and a heart 
full of gratitude, yours most faithfully, until we meet again, 

Thomas Winthrop. 


The trim little jib and mainsail boat had tacked 
clear of the channel that led past Little Spanish Key 
and was footing it briskly toward the outer string of 
islets, when Thomas asked the natural question 
which had been much in his mind: 

“It is none of my business, Levi, but what is Mr. 
Eastabrook^s game? He is a Northerner and he 
doesn’t look as if he were sticking down here for 
his health.” 

“Don’ ask me, boss. I dunno,” earnestly replied 
the negro. “He jes’ finished fixin’ th’ place up an’ 
sot hisself down like he ’tended stayin’ fo’ life. I 
reckon he ain’t got money to live anywhar’ else. I 
never asks him no fool questions.” 

“Where did he find you, Levi?” 

“He done brung me from Key Wes’, boss, whar’ 
I was stranded, but I was raised in ol’ Virginny.” 

Thomas was bafiled and fell to brooding over his 
119 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


own unhappy problem. To be set ashore in a strange 
camp, bereft of his right bower, Sergeant Jack Hogan, 
was an appalling prospect. And how was he to 
make his way from one key to another in search of 
his friend? This was even worse than being adrift 
in New York. Levi was sympathetic, but orders 
were orders and he was bent on finding the nearest 
construction camp by the shortest possible route. 
They had left behind them the unfrequented waters 
surrounding Little Spanish Key and were nearing 
the open sea, when Thomas Meserve scrambled to 
his feet, shaded his eyes, and cried out with amaze- 
ment. Against the dazzling glory of blue sky and 
bluer water ran a long, low line of white arches, ex- 
tending from one of the keys and boldly marching, 
span after span, sheer toward the unbroken horizon. 
Massive, majestic, this great viaduct, solid and dur- 
able as the rock upon which it was builded, rose from 
the battering sea as a unique achievement of faith 
and works. Tom whistled and cried delightedly: 

“By Jupiter, isn’t that magnificent? There is 
where I want to work, Levi. Is that viaduct fin- 
ished yet?” 

“No, suh, th’ Long Key Viaduct ain’t done, 
more’n half. It suttinly am a mighty piece of wu’k. 
It’s too fur away to land you at. An’ I dunno th’ 
channel to it, nohow.” 

The passenger lost his elation. The sight of this 
120 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


superb engineering feat failed to lighten the troubles 
of Thomas Winthrop Meserve. Levi was heading 
the boat for a nearby key upon which gleamed the 
tents of a grading camp. Just then there appeared 
from behind this island the tall funnels and tower- 
ing superstructure of a stern-wheeled steamer, her 
low pressure exhaust panting loudly. Thomas 
snatched at a straw of hope and exclaimed : 

‘‘Wait for her, Levi. If that is the Memphis 
Queen, her captain can tell me where I belong.’’ 

The sail-boat shot up into the wind and drifted 
in the narrow channel until the steamer was almost 
abreast. Then Thomas made frantic signals and 
shouted so imploringly that the stern-wheeler slowed 
down and waited until the little craft had shot close 
alongside. Crawling out on the bow, Thomas 
jumped for the low guard-rail of the Memphis Queen, 
caught hold of a stanchion, and pulled himself 
aboard. Waving a hand in farewell to Levi, he 
climbed painfully to the hurricane deck and ex- 
plained to the swarthy skipper: 

“I have lost my camp, if you please, and I want 
to get back to it. You brought our gang down from 
the railroad two nights ago.” 

“Sure you are not a runaway?” queried the cap- 
tain severely. “I like your gall in holding up my 
steamer. What’s to prevent my chucking you over- 
board?” 


I2I 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Thomas had no answer ready and could only 
plead by way of explanation: 

‘T was trying to catch a booze-boat and her crew 
kidnapped me. I couldn’t help it. If I can find 
my partner, Jack Hogan, he will tell you I am all 
straight.” 

The surprised mariner smote the lad on the 
shoulder, shoved him into the spacious wheel-house, 
thrust him upon a leather-cushioned transom, and 
exclaimed with excitable gusto: 

So you are Tom Winthrop, are you ? The whole 
of Upper Matacumbe Key is looking for you. And 
you have risen from the dead and look most sur- 
prisingly spruce, as if the trip had done you good! 
Hogan was aboard last night, going on like a crazy 
man, begging me to take him down to Long Key 
and back. The division engineer took it to heart, 
and sick as he was, he was up and aboard one of the 
launches yesterday. Yes, indeed, I’m delighted to 
take you back to your camp. If those booze-runners 
had been overhauled there’d ha’ been a lynching bee 
in no time.” 

Thomas was completely overwhelmed. He seemed 
to be returning in the role of a hero and he could only 
murmur with tears in his eyes: 

“Good old Jack. But why did they make any 
fuss about me, captain?” 

“Mainly because this Hogan man raised such an 
122 


DRIVEN OUT OF EDEN 


infernal row about it,” replied the captain. ‘‘He 
is a powerful trouble-breeder when he gets under 
way, and any one that didn’t agree that the railroad 
must stop work without you, was in sore danger of 
being hammered to a pulp. The camp is demor- 
alized. Oh, you are a leading citizen of Camp 
Number Eleven by this time.” 

Captain Canova left his mate to handle the steamer 
and commanded Thomas to relate what had befallen 
him, which narrative consumed so much time that 
the whistle bellowed for the landing before the whole 
had been told. 

“You will have supper aboard with me next time I 
touch at your camp,” said the captain, “and spin 
me the rest of your yarn about the fat gent and his 
beautiful daughter of Little Spanish Key. Why 
should I spend my good money to buy novels about 
dukes and castles and such when you are chuck-full 
of copper-fastened romance that beats anything I 
ever ran foul of? Come on deck and look for your 
big, noisy comrade-in-arms. He will be waiting 
for news.” 

The Memphis Queen sidled crab-fashion to make 
her landing. A crowd of laborers swarmed to meet 
her; for the day’s work was done and it was the 
blessed cool of the early morning. At their head 
towered the martial figure of Sergeant John Hogan. 
The heart of Thomas Winthrop leaped at the sight, 
123 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


and before he was within hailing distance he was 
dancing to and fro shouting himself breathless. 
The camp was no longer hostile, forbidding, isolated. 
This was like coming home, it was where he belonged, 
and although he was not old enough to know how 
rare and precious a thing it was to have even one 
such friend as he had won in the loyal sergeant, 
nevertheless he was supremely happy and content 
with his lot. 

These two met on the gang-plank and Hogan was 
nearer blubbering than ever he had been in his 
iron-fisted career as he flung an arm around his 
young bunkie and shouted: 

‘^You little divil, you. Are ye all here? Didn’t 
they murder you entirely? I have been rampagin’ 
like a wild man, and my heart was broke for sendin’ 
you to your death.” 

“A trifle shaky. Jack, but all here,” said the 
Freshman with a grin of purest joy. “I was un- 
avoidably detained, but I had an awfully good run 
for my money. Shake the crowd and I’ll tell you 
all about it. Whew, but I am certainly glad to see 
you.” 


124 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 

The joy of Jack Hogan in the safe return of the 
Freshman was clouded by one disturbing factor. 
He wagged his head over the revelation that his 
young comrade had discovered a girl in his recent 
wanderings, and worse than this, that he blushed 
when she was mentioned and was unduly reticent 
concerning her charms. 

’Tis discouragin’ and I heartily dislike the symp- 
toms,” announced the mentor after they had talked 
late into the night. “I had hopes of ye, Tom, and 
the petticoats were the least of my worries, for I 
thought there were no wimmen within gunshot of 
this region. And you discover the only one of them 
without losin’ a minute! I will see to it that you 
don’t find her again.” 

Thomas looked rebellious and had no comment 
to make. It was evident that past experiences of 
Sergeant John Hogan had warped his vision and 
given him a pessimistic opinion of femininity at 
large. This wise man of the world had something 
125 


' THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

more to say with reference to the attractive damsel 
of Little Spanish Key, which comment he delivered 
with the air of one having a stem duty to per- 
form: 

‘‘She may be as bewitchin’ as ye say, Tom, and I 
take your word for it, but her old man is a bad lot. 
What would he be doin’ under cover, tucked away 
on one of these God-forsaken reefs, with a complete 
system of fortifications, and wantin’ to see nobody 
at all? Can ye tell me that? He was anxious to 
get rid of you, I notice. You say he is not a native. 
Then he has done something that makes him al- 
mighty unpopular somewheres else.” 

“Then his daughter ought to be rescued from 
such a life,” cried Tom. “And you are the very 
man to join me in sifting this mystery to the bottom.” 

“Not on your life! Wimmen are all mysteries,” 
sagely quoth the sergeant, “and now you are due 
to turn in and sleep yourself sensible again, you 
ravin’ young lunatic.” 

Tom bethought himself to inquire for his other 
tent-mates, Fitzherbert and Jones, at which he was 
informed : 

“Old Jones, the pen-pusher, was drafted off to 
help the storekeeper, and very glad I was, for he 
couldn’t stand hard work. The Englishman is 
sweatin’ with the concrete gang on the next key 
below, and will not be feeling very melodious by 
126 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 


now. You will rest up till you get your strength, 
Tom, and then it is the pick and shovel for yours. 
No soft snaps in Professor Hogan’s college course 
for makin’ two-handed men, mind ye that.” 

While he idled and recovered his strength, the 
Freshman had his first view of that part of the gigan- 
tic construction work which included his own camp 
and its hundreds of hard-driven men. They were 
strung along the embankment of limestone that 
stretched across the key like a white ribbon. Be- 
hind them the trestle and solid rampart of rock rose 
from the open water to link their work with the keys 
to the northward. Ahead of them other gangs were 
building the pathway for the steel track to carry it 
ever south, but the most impressive activities were 
focused at the great Long Key Viaduct. 

Down the wide Hawk Channel passed one deep- 
laden tramp steamer after another, rolling home 
with material for this monumental structure, while 
there seemed to be no end to the procession of coast- 
wise vessels, tugs, and barges that were carrying 
concrete, steel, sand, and rock to Long Key. 

Thomas was not surprised to find Sergeant Jack 
Hogan bossing a crew of laborers who were making 
a section of road-bed for the track-layers. And when 
he was fit to try to earn his wages, the youngster 
made never a “bleat” at being assigned to toil under 
this stern and impartial taskmaster. Hogan eyed 
127 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


him grimly as the sweating novice tried to ease 
his blistered hands, or hobbled into camp at the 
noon hour, bent double like a rheumatic old man. 
Thomas might have been less docile could he have 
overheard the division engineer telling Hogan: 

“I know pretty well what you can do. Your 
army record shows that you can make yourself very 
useful to me. And you don’t drink. Just you stick 
by this work and you will not regret it. But how 
about this boy you have taken under your wing ? I 
like his looks and he has been raised as a gentleman. 
He is bright enough to hold down an office job. We 
can use him in half a dozen ways. He ought not to 
be drilling along with the common tarriers. Better 
send him up to see me, Hogan.” 

The sergeant saluted and respectfully replied: 

“If you please, and don’t think me impudent, Mr. 
Carson, but the trouble with the lad is that people 
have been makin’ it easy for him all his life. Let 
him win his promotion in the sweat of his brow. 
Turn him over to me for a while longer. I was 
looney enough to fetch him down here, and I’ll have 
to square it with his daddy some day. Let him take 
his medicine. It’s coming to him, sir.” 

The engineer smiled understanding^ and had no 
more objection to offer. And so Thomas strove to 
“take his medicine” like a man, and day by day 
became browner and tougher and thinner, and felt 
128 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 


that he was earning his ‘‘one-seventy-five per day.” 
Older and more muscular men fell out of his gang 
and were taken to the hospital, or ran off to Key 
West or Miami in whatever small craft they could 
hire from the natives, and after wasting their savings 
in dissipation, tramped it northward to spread more 
stories of the “wicked slave-drivers.” They were 
men who had no stamina, they had drunk hard and 
lived hard, and this test weeded out the unfit, swiftly, 
inexorably. It put fresh heart into the stripling 
Freshman to find that he was holding his own and 
was able to stand up to his work in this tropical 
furnace of a place. 

Whenever he become despondent because of utter 
weariness, Hogan was ready with a wise word or a 
caustic jest, nursing the boy along as a skilled rider 
handles a well-bred colt. Out under the velvet sky 
in the reviving freshness of night the sergeant 
sprawled on the beach, his pipe aglow, and told 
amazing tales of his adventures afield and afloat, 
and inspired other rovers to recount how strangely 
the world had used them. Thomas perceived that 
among these queer comrades of his there was no 
whining over misfortune, and that “going broke” 
was a commonplace incident. Their vivid narra- 
tives began with a certain formula varied somewhat 
in this wise: 

“When I was busted in Trisco that winter ” 

129 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘T was down and out, all right, and sleeping on 
the Bund in Shanghai.’’ 

‘‘Vera Cruz is a tough place for a white man with 
never a cent and no job, I tell you, boys.” 

Although these men were failures, reflected Thom- 
as, they had a kind of invincible self-reliance that 
commanded respect. They had cast out fear and 
looked to-day and to-morrow in the eye without 
flinching. The remembrance of his whimpering 
panic at the thought of facing his college debts, and 
of a reckoning with his justly indignant father, filled 
him with a sense of shame. He had begun to real- 
ize that, after all, the campus did not hold a monop- 
oly of the manly virtues, which serves to show that 
the rough-and-tumble educational theories of Ser- 
geant Hogan were getting a grip on this pupil. 

Thomas no longer talked about his own misfort- 
unes. He did not expect to be sympathized with 
and coddled out of a “grouch.” Unconsciously he 
was imitating the curt, clean-cut manner of speech 
of the sergeant in dealing with the men with whom 
they were compelled to associate, and he no longer 
slouched but walked, head up, shoulders well braced. 
In brief, the Freshman was ambitious of promotion 
and aspired to be a foreman. 

At length Hogan came to him with the welcome 
tidings : 

“We shift camp to-morrow. I’m going aboard 
130 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 


Quarter-boat Number Ten at the Long Key Viaduct, 
and you are to hike along with me. It will be livin’ 
afloat, which is better than this hell-hole of a key, 
and I am to give you a small gang of men of your 
own to boss. You’ve made good, you tarrapin, an’ 
the engineer speaks well of ye.” 

Thomas could have been no more genuinely elated 
had he been chosen to pitch for the Elmsford Univer- 
sity nine. " His face shone as he said : 

“That is bully, Jack. Wait until you see the via- 
duct. You will be proud to help on such a job. 
And I am to move up a peg? Well, I didn’t flunk 
my exams this time, did I ? Do you know, I think 
it is about time I wrote a letter home. They must 
be worried about me, and this news will make them 
sit up.” 

“About time, you selfish young villain!” roared 
Hogan. “ I should say it was. Thinkin’ of yourself 
and never a thought for your father and mother! 
’Tis like the sons of good men and wimmen the 
world over. Write that letter to-night or I’ll black 
both your eyes for you.” 

Thomas dutifully foraged for pencil and paper, 
and while his intentions were commendable, the 
result was likely to prove most distressing to Mr. 
and Mrs. Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Sr. It never 
occurred to their ingenuous offspring that they might 
fail to comprehend his changed views of life, or that 
131 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


they would regard his success as betokening the most 
alarming degradation and hardship. With enthu- 
siastic interest he wrote as follows: 

Dear Mother and Father: 

I do not quite know how to date this letter, but my next job 
wil^ be at the Long Key Viaduct, somewhere off the Florida 
coast. I have been an awful shyster to send you no word be- 
fore, but Hogan wrote you from New York and told you I was 
right side up. Well, I made such a mess of things in college 
that I decided to strike out for myself and show you that I 
could win. Hogan brought me way down here and he is the 
greatest man you ever saw in your life. We are building a rail- 
road to Key West, right out over the salt, wet sea, five thou- 
sand of us, and I have been moving real estate with a shovel 
for one-seventy-five per day, just a common or garden tarrier. 

Hogan has taught me something about handling men and 
I am to be made a foreman in a small way, so you see things 
are coming strong for me. I got mixed up in a fight with a 
bunch of pirates who were trying to run whiskey into our 
camp, and had my head cracked but soon recovered. Since 
then I have licked several Dagoes who got gay on the embank- 
ment, and Hogan thinks I am doing well. 

I must tell you that I have met a girl who interests me very 
much. Not that I am really in love, but I expect to be when 
I see her again. This looks to me like the real thing. She 
lives with her father on an out-of-the-way key below here. 
He seems to be hiding there for some reason, and came near 
blowing me sky-high with a gun he had planted in ambush. 
But she is so good and beautiful and fine that I can afford to 
overlook a little thing like that, and she cannot be held respon- 
sible for him, anyhow. 


132 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 

Please do not ask me to come home now. I must stay here 
through next winter, or until the Long Key Viaduct is finished. 
I am as hard as nails, in love with the game, and stand well 
with my bosses. I hope you will write me, care of Quarter- 
Boat Number Ten at Long Key, but please don’t interfere, 
will you? I suppose the horse-shoe nail factory is dead easy 
compared with this, but I am satisfied and happy, so what’s 
the odds ? I am going back to college some day, and am sav- 
ing my wages to pay my own way. With love and begging 
your blessing, I am very fondly your son. 

T. W. Meserve, Jr., 
alias 

Thomas Winthrop. 

When Thomas had mailed this lively summary of 
his achievements, Hogan asked what he had written 
to console and reassure his anxious parents. After 
listening to an outline of the letter, the sergeant 
gravely commended: 

donT want to sound peevish. Tommy, but you 
have tossed a bombshell into that peaceful, genteel 
mansion in Cleveland. From what you have told 
me, your family is numbered among the tame and 
industrious rich who live up to the rules most par- 
ticular. They lose the heir, he is mislaid in com- 
pany of a rude and awful soldier man, and he is 
next heard of as a beast of burden in a railroad 
camp and proud of it. And to drive ’em clean dis- 
tracted you have to shout it that you are in love with 
the daughter of an outlaw, brand unknown, and are 
133 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


contemplatin’ a mess-alliance that will tear your 
former social circles wide open. No, Tommy, your 
letter is divertin’ but it would take a case-hardened 
liar to call it soothing. Such details as the episode 
of the booze-boat are what you call the high lights.” 

“Honestly, Jack, is it as bad as that?” anxiously 
queried the author. “I told them the plain truth. 
Of course, I am going to find that girl again. And 
I can’t believe the old man is an outlaw. He is too 
fat and citified for that.” 

“Bank presidents are built that way. One was 
pointed out to me once, and he was a heap over- 
weight, ’’declared Hogan. “Maybe this one looted 
the vaults and picked Little Spanish Key as the 
safest place to bury the gold until the smoke cleared 
away. However, your letter has gone, and good 
luck to it. From what I know about mothers, and 
I had one once, and a pig of a son I was to her, 
yours will be thankin’ God on her knees that you 
are alive and well, and nothing else at all will matter 
very much.” 

Somewhat cheered, the Freshman fell to packing 
his slender kit for the welcome shift of base to Long 
Key. It was the Memphis Queen that carried the 
working force to the new quarters afloat, and Cap- 
tain Canova hailed Thomas as he marched on board, 
and invited him to the exclusive realm of the hurri- 
cane deck. This master mariner of the railroad 
134 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 


fleet was a Cuban by birth, having learned to know 
the waters of the Bahama and Florida keys as a 
fisherman, sponger, pilot, wrecker, and steamboat 
man. Handsome, rather vain, a good deal of the 
dandy in his love of fine raiment, he was not such a 
sailor as you would have picked to fight his way 
through a dangerous situation, and Sergeant Hogan, 
violent in his likes and dislikes, had marked down 
Captain Rafael Canova as a ‘^counterfeit.’’ The 
less critical Thomas was of a different mind, how- 
ever, and he frankly admired this dashing skipper 
who had so cordially befriended him. 

“I was about to send a deck-hand ashore to find 
you,” said he, as the Freshman perched himself upon 
the rail of the wheel-house. “I had to run down to 
Key West for some repairs and coming back to-day, 
that old nigger in the jib-and-mainsail boat was 
waiting on the. edge of Hawk Channel, just about 
where I picked you up. He made signals and I 
slowed up while he tossed a letter aboard, tied to a 
bunch of oyster shells. I yelled at him that I wasn’t 
running a rural delivery packet boat, but he just 
wagged his old gray head and batted his eyes at me 
and put about for the inside channel.” 

“W-was the letter for me?” asked the youth and 
his face was very red indeed. 

“For Thomas Winthrop, Esquire, care of the Mem- 
phis Queerij and it wasn’t a man’s fist that handled 

135 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


the pen,” quoth the gallant skipper, pulling at his 
black mustache and standing very erect as if, for- 
sooth, he was not unused to feminine attention him- 
self. ‘H don’t want to be cruel. Here it is.” 

He gave Thomas the envelope and the young man 
fled aft, forgetting to stammer his gratitude. It 
seemed incredible that Helen Eastabrook should 
have sent him a letter and he eyed the superscription 
as if this were a message from Mars. How wonder- 
ful of her to have thought of tracing him by means of 
the Memphis Queen 1 It must be in answer to his 
note of thanks and she was unwilling to let it be 
farewell! Perhaps she had need of him. Thomas 
sighed, smiled, very carefully tore open the envelope, 
and held the sheet of note-paper by the comers lest 
he profane it with toil-stained fingers. 

The steamer was moving out from the lee of the 
key and as she turned to pick up the course past the 
buoys, her hull swung broadside to the whistling 
wind from the nor’east. A wicked gust smote 
Thomas unawares and whisked the precious letter 
from his fingers, drove it fluttering in mad career 
across the deck, and bore it like a feather through 
the wide meshes of the rail netting. Overcome with 
woe and consternation, Thomas emitted a wild cry 
of anguish, dived for the rail on hands and knees, 
fetched up with a resounding thump, and popped 
over the barrier, where he hung fast to a davit and 
136 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 


scanned the white-capped water. The letter was 
drifting astern like a fleck of foam, and only the sight 
of the huge stern-wheel, tearing the surface into 
thundering cataracts of spray, held him back from 
jumping overboard in chase. 

His anguished gaze beheld the water-logged bit of 
paper whirl into the suction of the wheel and vanish 
forever more. Captain Canova had observed his 
mad rush across the deck and hurried aft, conjectur- 
ing that evil tidings had driven the rash youth to 
suicide. 

‘H hadn^t read a word of it, and it blew away,^^ 
faltered Thomas. ‘‘I am the most unhappy man 
in the world.’’ 

The captain clapped his hand to his heart and 
feelingly replied: 

‘‘They have made me suffer in my day. I can 
sorrow with you. It is the luck of the devil himself. 
I would lower a boat, but the love-letter has va- 
moosed.” 

“ It wasn’t a love-letter,” mourned Thomas. “Not 
a bit of it. But it was terribly important, whatever 
it was. Oh, well, no use crying over spilt milk,” 
with which he stuck his hands in his pockets and 
stalked below to find Jack Hogan, suddenly recol- 
lecting that he had been sternly schooled to keep 
his troubles to himself. He had no intention of con- 
fessing to the sergeant but that shrewd guardian read 
137 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


the signs of distress and extorted the sad story by 
threats of bodily violence. He was not a sympa- 
thetic confidant, however, and exclaimed with a 
brutal laugh: 

“What terrible trials children have, to be sure! 
So the wind blew all her pretty words away! ‘Tri- 
fles light as air,’ as the poet said, and me old captain 
used to spout him by the yard, whoever he was. 
’Tis likely there will be many a shift of wind for you, 
and many a face you will forget, before you find the 
one girl that is waitin’ for you, me boy.” 

“Oh, confound it, I am not as soft and silly as you 
think,” angrily blurted Thomas. “Never mind, I 
shall get a boat and sail over to see her.” 

“Watch out that her old man has not planted his 
harbor with mines,” said Hogan. “And as for your 
jumping your job to go romancin’ off to find this 
young flyaway, you will not leave Long Key till I 
say the word. You are talking to your boss, under- 
stand.” 

The disgruntled Freshman moved sulkily away 
and chewed the cud of bitterness while the Memphis 
Queen slid over the opalescent shallows and drove 
the shining schools of flying-fish ahead of her blunt 
bow. It was firmly fixed in the stubborn head of 
Thomas that Helen Eastabrook had sent him some 
message of vital moment, and that she expected him 
to play the part of a knight-errant. And he would 
138 


THE GOSPEL OF HARD WORK 


be a craven, indeed, unless he responded in some 
way or other and with all possible haste. 

At heart he was not really vain enough to assume 
that she regarded him with any sentimental eager- 
ness to see him again, but one dreams dreams and 
builds romances at twenty, and Thomas was a nor- 
mal youth. When it came to the point of disobeying 
Jack Hogan, however, and proving unfaithful to his 
trust as a man about to shoulder responsibility as a 
foreman on the Long Key Viaduct, Thomas found 
himself torn two ways, and in acute distress of mind. 

‘‘I couldn’t find Little Spanish Key again,” he 
said to himself. “And if I pick up a beach-comber 
to pilot me, Mr. Eastabrook will be madder than 
ever, for he doesn’t want to be discovered by the 
natives. He put his house on the other side of the 
key to keep under cover. And if I do try to make 
the trip, Hogan will never forgive me, and I lose my 
job. All I can do is to sit tight and watch for a 
chance to send her a letter. Life is certainly a com- 
plicated game, no matter how you play it.” 


139 


CHAPTER IX 


THE REAL THING IN BASE-BALL 

The Freshman could not be utterly downcast for 
long. The Long Key Viaduct was visible, its arches 
marching along the horizon like some noble struct- 
ure of the Rome of the Caesars. As the Memphis 
Queen drew nearer, the manifold activities of the 
builders were apparent. The dry land was no more 
than a base of supplies. Men and machines were 
afloat, living and working in craft of every descrip- 
tion. The unique flotilla dotted the sea — suction 
dredges, concrete mixing plants, schooners, pile- 
drivers, lumber scows, steam-ships, launches, and 
tow-boats, while moored along the shore of Long 
Key towered the uncouth, high-walled ‘‘quarter- 
boats” of the workmen. A vast and complex con- 
struction plant had been bodily shifted to salt water, 
risking hazard of hurricane, no longer an army but 
a navy of toilers. 

This novel aspect moved Hogan to remark: 

“Now I wish I’d served me time in a battle-ship 
instead of a rigiment. I never expected, so help me, 
140 


THE REAL THING IN BASE-BALL 


to run the risk of being took seasick in buildin’ a 
railroad. We must get our sea-legs on, Tommy, 
and watch the barometer. ’Tis a great sight, and 
I’m glad I came.” 

Keenly interested, the Freshman followed Hogan 
ashore and carried his kit aboard Quarter-Boat 
Number Ten, which was lying abreast of the long, 
low sand-spit that formed the end of Long Key, and 
was somewhat sheltered by the landward arches of 
the viaduct. A two-storied house had been roughly 
constructed upon the stout hull of a wide-beamed 
barge. On the top deck or floor were cots for a hun- 
dred and fifty men, and below were the kitchens, 
offices, and the long mess-room. The breezes had 
full sweep through the long windows and the boat 
was airy, cool, and comfortable after the sweltering 
ordeal of living in camp. 

With soldierly promptness, Hogan posted off to 
report to the division engineer for orders, and per- 
haps to slip in a good word for his protege, while 
Tom dangled his heels from a window-sill and 
watched the crowded yawls come creeping in from 
the outer end of the viaduct, bringing the laborers 
to their several quarter-boats for supper. Hogan 
was so long absent that Tom joined the nearest squad 
at table and devastated the rough, hearty fare like a 
young giant. When the sergeant returned, his man- 
ner was as of one bearing weighty tidings and, haul- 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ing the Freshman into a corner of the bunk-room, he 
eagerly confided: 

“We have joined this web-footed outfit just in 
time. Our gang knocks off work to-morrow, for 
there is some trouble in sinkin’ the caissons, and the 
rest of us are held up. Tell me first, and tell me 
true. Tommy, can you pitch a good game of ball? 
Ye have mentioned your pitching in college, but 
maybe it was as bad as the rest of your record.” 

“I was almost good enough to make the Varsity 
nine,” sharply returned the other, somewhat nettled 
by this slighting reference to his prowess as an athlete. 
“I needed a little more steam behind my delivery, 
but I think my arm would have been stronger by 
another season. What is the row, anyhow?” 

“You have been making muscle since I took ye 
in tow, and I^m not afraid of your fading away in the 
pitcher’s box,” good-naturedly said Hogan as he 
gripped the youngster’s hard biceps. “And I take 
your word for it that you have the curves and drops 
that’s needed. To-morrow you will pitch for your 
life on a team picked from the quarter-boats. It 
will be a great occasion. Tommy.” 

“Do I have nothing whatever to say?” asked the 
Freshman. “Where and what?” 

“This new division engineer of ours is a hot sport 
and a gentleman down to his heels,” Hogan con- 
descended to explain. “And he is fair perishin’ to 
142 


THE REAL THING IN BASE-BALL 


see a game of ball. To-morrow he will give a holi- 
day to the good-conduct men afloat and ashore, 
meanin^ them that has stayed sober and can be 
trusted to behave. ^Tis a special reward of merit. 
There’s some ball-players in the shore camp on Long 
Key and they’ve challenged us web-foots on the 
boats. It seems that we are shy of pitchin’ talent 
and overhearing the lamentations of the bunch, I 
shoved you in the breach, and there you are. What’s 
a college education good for, I want to know?” 

“But we can’t play on these keys. There isn’t a 
patch of ground fit to lay out a diamond, much less 
an outfield,” cried Thomas, his eyes dancing with 
the light of battle. 

“The Memphis Queen will carry the crowd to 
Key West, Tommy. The engineer has already en- 
gaged the grounds that belong to the black-and-tan 
team that call themselves the Cuban Giants. All 
hands are betting their wages and if you’re licked 
you had better step overboard and swim north with 
the Gulf Stream.” 

Thomas began to feel symptoms of dismay and 
hastily asked to be led to the captain of the quarter- 
boat nine, who was discovered on the beach where 
he was seeking to muster his men. He was a stocky, 
alert-looking person, no longer young, who intro- 
duced himself as Tim McFarland, of Quarter-Boat 
Number Ten. 


143 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘Tim McFarland/’ echoed Thomas, as they 
shook hands. “Why, it can’t be — I read base-ball 
news when I was knee-high — and there was a Tim 
McFarland, the great short-stop of the Chicago 
League team.” 

“Which the same is yours truly,” grinned the 
gray-haired gladiator. “What do you think they 
do with has-been ball-players, chloroform ’em? I 
had to make a living somehow after I lost my 
batting eye and got stiff in the joints. Foreman 
Hogan tells me you can pitch a few. The col- 
leges play some good ball nowadays. Well, well, 
we have signed a great collection of base-ball dis- 
cards for this game to-morrow. You can find al- 
most any kind of a handy man in this outfit of 
hoboes.” 

Thomas looked solemn. This promised to be 
faster company than he relished, and he asked the 
natural question: 

“How about the other team, Mr. McFarland? 
Who will pitch for them? You have me scared. 
Any more old professionals?” 

The veteran short-stop winked mischievously as 
he replied: 

“Nothing so very classy, barring the slab-artist 
of the Sand Fleas, as they call themselves. His 
name is Terry Flynn. He was a good one in his day, 
but rum threw him hard and he stayed down. He 

144 


THE REAL THING IN BASE-BALL 


looks like a soak now, but he may have one good 
game in him. The last time I saw him in action was 
in the old Atlantic League.” 

At this news the Freshman fairly gasped. Then 
this was to be no farce of a holiday contest. But he 
was not going to let Tim McFarland think him a 
coward and he nonchalantly observed: 

might have known that there were first-class 
ball-players in such a crowd of men as this — all 
kinds from everywhere. Please introduce me to my 
catcher. We might limber up a bit before dark. 
This is a fine, hard strip of beach.” 

McFarland beckoned a red-faced, battered person 
who was chatting with a group of loafers sprawled 
out on a pile of timber, and remarked: 

‘^The battery, gentlemen! Winthrop and Jenks. 
Clear the beach and watch ^em give you an imitation 
of Kelly and Clarkson at their best.” 

Mr. Jenks, who was a taciturn individual, pro- 
duced a ball from inside his shirt and made ready to 
receive the bombardment bare-handed. The Fresh- 
man pitcher gained confidence after a few minutes’ 
practice and was rejoiced to find that he could com- 
mand more speed and accuracy than he had dared 
hope for. The catcher made wry faces and delayed 
to nurse his fingers while Tim McFarland beamed 
encouragingly and exclaimed: 

“Not so bad for a kid, eh, Jenks? Better wait 
I4S 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


till I can buy you a glove in Key West. The Sand 
Fleas will be kept guessing, just a few.^^ 

Thomas returned to Quarter-Boat Number Ten 
in high feather and wisely decided to go early to bed 
and leave Hogan to his own devices. He was sitting 
on the edge of his cot, gazing admiringly at the won- 
derful panorama of sea and sky framed by the near- 
est window, when the sergeant tramped in and ear- 
nestly declaimed: 

“The Sand Fleas are coming aboard to make 
a friendly call and show there is no hard feeling. 
You will have to buck up and meet ’em. Tommy. 
They’re good fellows, barring Terry Flynn, the 
pitcher. He is talkin’ loud and hunting trouble, and 
he aims to shake your nerve. Don’t mix it up 
with him, but don’t let him bluff you, understand. 
You have plenty of friends. This Flynn is bad 
medicine, they tell me.” 

The wondering Freshman followed Hogan down- 
stairs to the mess-room, just as the visitors clattered 
aboard. They were making a good-natured com- 
motion and loudly declaring their intention of white- 
washing the “Quarter-boats” on the morrow. The 
reception was cordial and noisy and Tim McFarland, 
after a whispered conference with the steward, showed 
himself to be an admirable host, by setting forth a 
bottle of iced beer per man. Tom had prudently 
sought shelter beside Hogan, and presently there 
146 


THE REAL THING IN BASE-BALL 

swaggered toward them a tall, loose-jointed, surly- 
looking stranger who said with a sneering laugh: 

“Is this the college stuff we’re going to 

knock out of the box ? Say, boys, pipe him off. Oh, 

what a cinch. I’ll bet you don’t last 

three innings, Willie.” 

The comrades of Terry Flynn, quick to resent his 
flagrant discourtesy as a guest of the “Quarter- 
boats,” yelled to him to keep his mouth shut, but he 
persisted in hurling more foul-mouthed taunts at 
the youthful pitcher, whose face had grown very 
white. Hogan was grasping his arm and whis- 
pering: 

“I know you want to land on him, and I’d like 
to see you half kill him, but don’t do it. He’s a 
dog. Don’t dirty your hands. Softly, Tommy 
dear. Wait till after the game.” 

The Freshman’s eyes were full of tears and his lip 
quivered as he begged Hogan to release him. Tim 
McFarland stepped forward, disgust written in every 
line of his rugged countenance, clutched Terry Flynn 
by the collar, whirled him around with a terrific 
thrust and heave, then deliberately, methodically, 
kicked him to the door and down the gang-plank. 

“I beg your pardon for doing your work,” said 
McFarland, breathing hard, as he returned to con- 
front the Sand Fleas. “But I seemed to be called 
upon to tend to the job.” 

147 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Right you are,” replied the captain of the visi- 
tors. aimed to throw him out myself, but you 
moved faster. Please forget it, will you? WeTe 
sorry and ashamed. If he gets gay again, we’ll 
tame him down a whole lot.” 

The Sand Fleas withdrew rather awkwardly and 
poor Thomas, finding opportunity to flee the crowd, 
marched off to his cot and slumped down, his face 
in his hands, sobbing aloud: 

was making good on a man’s job until now. 
And I stood up and let him call me vile names and 
never put my hands on him. What will the men 
think, oh, what will they think ? And I have queered 
myself as a foreman, and nobody will have any 
respect for me.” 

Hogan had followed him, and stood beside the 
cot saying nothing for some time. Then as Tom 
looked up, his friend told him: 

“You did the right thing. If you have to use 
your fists in the line of duty, ’tis well and good and 
I expect to see ye fight till you drop. But you are 
here to , help me enforce discipline on Quarter-Boat 
Number Ten. And we will have no bar-room 
brawls aboard. The other men respected you, and 
you have not queered yourself. The disgrace is 
with those Sand Fleas for bringin’ Terry Flynn with 
’em. I would have smashed him meself but I will 
not have any one think I fight your battles for you. 

148 


THE REAL THING IN BASE-BALL 


You have stood on your own two feet till now, and 
ye have no reason to take on so.” 

‘^But — but he insulted me,” wailed Thomas. 

“He insulted nobody but himself and his friends, 
my boy. And your ball team will play for blood 
to-morrow because of this blackguard Terry Flynn. 
Out-pitch him. Tommy. That is how you must 
break even for to-nighFs ruction.” 

“Just you watch me. Jack. You have made 
me feel better, thank you, ”and Thomas actually 
smiled. “Idl take the game away from him if it 
kills me.” 


149 


CHAPTER X 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 

The Memphis Queen was steaming into the har- 
bor of Key West, her decks crowded with tanned, 
hearty-looking men who were cheering and singing 
and raising such a hullaballoo in general that the 
natives swarmed to the water-front in unwonted ex- 
citement. The saloons hastily prepared for a thirsty 
onslaught, the gamblers made their lay-outs ready 
for swift action, and the hackmen drove their bony 
steeds toward the wharf at a gallop. There must 
have been a pay-day on the keys, surmised this hos- 
pitable populace, which had found the railroad 
laborers highly profitable visitors. This, however, 
was a novel invasion. Four hundred men had been 
given a holiday excursion with conditions attached, 
and they intended to make a record for sobriety and 
respectability. Sergeant Jack Hogan had been ap- 
pointed provost-marshal and he had selected a dozen 
hard-fisted, muscular aides whose orders were to 
drag disorderly members of the party down to the 
Memphis Queen and lock them up in a spare cabin. 
150 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 


Tom Meserve had not slept as soundly as usual. 
This was more like war than base-ball, in his flut- 
tered opinion, and it was nothing short of cruel to 
pitchfork him without warning into a game which, as 
likely as not, might wind up with more broken heads 
than base hits. The trip to Key West in the steamer 
was not reassuring. The rival clans carried banners, 
hastily made of sailcloth and stencilled by an artist 
of the repair shop with the spirited devices: 

QUARTER-BOATS FOREVER. 

OUR MOTTO, 

WE EAT ’EM ALIVE!! 

KILL 

THE 

UMPIRE!!!!!! 


SIC ’EM, SAND FLEAS! 

WATCH US HOP. 

EVERYTHING GOES BUT 
MANSLAUGHTER !! 


Whenever Thomas cast a gloomy glance at these 
martial banners he shuddered and wished he had 
written a few farewell messages to his parents and 
such friends as might be interested to learn just how 
he had perished. It seemed hollow, bitter mockery 
to call base-ball a sport and a pastime. The terri- 
151 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ble Terry Flynn had been tamed for the time, but 
he took occasion to pass Thomas at close range on 
the deck of the Memphis Queen and scowled with 
the ferocity of a cannibal chief marking down a par- 
ticularly juicy victim. It was a trying situation for 
a “college kid,” as he had been dubbed by his com- 
rades of the Quarter-boat nine, but the Freshman 
kept his fears to himself and refused to listen to the 
bantering sympathy of Hogan. 

The steamer was almost alongside the wharf at 
Key West, her whistle raising a din of jubilant greet- 
ing, when a deck-hand ran after Tom Meserve and 
asked him to report to the captain in a hurry. As 
Thomas scampered past the wheel-house Captain 
Canova appeared from the starboard side, waved 
his arms in an eloquent flourish, and with a loud 
“hah, hah” of triumph indicated a small launch 
which was tied to a floating stage near the landward 
end of the long wharf. Bending over her engine 
was a venerable negro, and ever and anon he rubbed 
his head and made violent motions of anger and 
impatience. 

There was no mistaking old Levi of Little Spanish 
Key, and Thomas sped madly to the lower deck, 
bounded to the wharf, and bore down upon the 
launch with headlong ardor. All thought of base- 
ball was flung to the winds. The most urgent 
business on hand was to interview Levi. The Fresh- 
152 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 


man’s heart jumped at the bare possibility that 
Helen Eastabrook might be somewhere ashore, but 
this was, of course, too good to be true. Levi 
looked up at the sound of scurrying feet and 
grinned amiably at sight of his master’s unwelcome 
guest. He was given no time to frame a suitable 
greeting, for Thomas fetched up at the edge of the 
landing-stage with a loud cry of : 

“Good old Levi! You look handsomer than a 
million dollars. Forget your fussy little engine and 
listen to me. I want you to carry a letter to Miss 
Eastabrook, sure. I don’t suppose — that is — ahem 
— she didn’t come — you left her well, I hope?” 

“I didn’t lef’ her at all,” said Levi, after straight- 
ening his aching back with a quavering groan. “ She 
jes’ now lef’ me to wrastle with this yere fool injine. 
She went uptown to buy some goods at th’ sto’.” 

“What? Is her father with her?” and the de- 
meanor of Thomas was much less bold. 

“No, suh, he ain’t never come to Key West yit. 
He’s powerful shy that-a-way.” 

“Which way did she go ? Where can I find her ? ” 
The questions were fairly hurled at Levi’s head. 

“I reckon you can’t lose her if you’se sot on 
meetin’ up with her, Mistah Winthrop. You can’t 
walk more’n a hundred an’ eleven steps in Key Wes’ 
without prancin’ overboa’d which ever street yo’ 
take.” 


153 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


'"Well, if I miss her, you wait here and I will 
come back/’ shouted Thomas, as he bolted with 
head down, not into the nearest alley but plump into 
the waiting arms of Provost-Marshal Jack Hogan, 
who sternly declaimed: 

‘‘All stragglers and deserters to be rounded up at 
once, and no mercy shown ’em. I couldn’t help 
hearing your farewell to the accommodatin’ old col- 
ored gentleman that has gone adrift from Uncle 
Tom’s Cabin. Right about, face. You will miss 
her, ’tis a safe bet.” 

“But this is the very girl herself! I must see her. 
Great Heavens, Jack, it is my only chance! Don’t 
be so bull-headed. Let me explain.” Thomas was 
squirming to escape, but his brutal captor held him 
at arm’s length and replied with righteous indigna- 
tion and inexorable firmness: 

“If necessary, I will turn out the guard to lug ye 
to the base-ball field feet first. The team is hustlin’ 
out there to practice right away quick. ’Tis no 
time to lose yourself and your wits flyin’ after a pet- 
ticoat. Have I hammered no discipline into you at 
all, Thomas?” 

“I swear I will take no more than a few minutes. 
If you refuse to be reasonable. I’ll refuse to pitch, 
that’s all,” sputtered the outraged Freshman. 
“Please, Jack. I want to explain that lost letter.” 

“And if she asks you to sit down in the shade of 
154 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 


a cocoanut tree while she tells ye the sad story of her 
life, you will fight no harder than so much putty, 
Tommy lad. But seein’ as you’re plumb distracted. 
I’ll be weak enough to compromise. I will go with 
ye and find the charmer and I will hold me watch 
while you turn red and fall over your feet an’ pass 
the time of day with her in a weak, falterin’ voice. 
’Twas years and years ago since I first had the 
symptoms but I remember ’em well.” 

There was nothing to do but accept these humili- 
ating terms, for to combat the purpose of Jack Ho- 
gan was as futile as ramming a brick wall head-fore- 
most. Very sheepishly and in sullen silence the 
Freshman trudged beside his keeper and swept the 
landscape with vigilant scrutiny in the hope of sight- 
ing Helen Eastabrook. When he spied her, she was 
coming toward the water-front as if finished with 
shopping, and Thomas muttered pettishly: 

‘‘Now break away. Jack, and don’t spoil my 
game. I’ll be good, and when you whistle I will say 
adieu to her, honestly. You certainly do make me 
tired.” 

The admirer advanced with outward boldness, 
tacked across the street, and was made no easier 
in his mind at hearing Hogan exhort him in a hoarse 
murmur: 

“Throw out your chest and turn out your toes. 
You’re all caved in.” 


155 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Miss Helen Eastabrook stood stock-still, gallantly 
recovered from her genuine surprise, and was charm- 
ingly self-possessed as she smiled in recognition of 
this tall, tanned, fair-haired youth who cried before 
they had met: 

‘‘My, but I am glad to see you. This must be 
my lucky day.^’ 

“I seldom come to Key West, and I suppose you 
do not feel like making another call at Little Spanish 
Key,^’ said she. “I hope you understood my letter. 
I tried to explain some things. I wasn’t satisfied 
to have you think us so heartless and barbarous.” 

“I thought you behaved most beautifully. Miss 
Eastabrook. You were an angel, and — and ” 

Her eyes mirrored merriment as she broke in to 
say: 

“And father was Old Nick himself, but you are 
too polite to put it that way. He is trying at times. 
But you can forgive him, I am sure, after what I told 
you in my letter.” 

“Your letter, yes, indeed,” stammered the Fresh- 
man, fairly cornered. “The trouble is I got it, but 
— but I never read it. You see ” 

The chin of Helen Eastabrook was suddenly tilted 
as she looked straight before her and murmured in 
freezing accents: 

“You thought it not worth while reading? Oh, 
dear, what a waste of time. I am utterly crushed. 
156 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 

I am sure I can^t be worth while talking to. I bid 
you good-day, Mr. Winthrop.” 

‘‘It blew away. I was almost broken-hearted. I 
nearly jumped overboard for it. Give me a chance. 
Oh, don’t let us have such a dreadful misunderstand- 
ing,” implored the culprit, marching doggedly at 
her elbow. ‘‘Will you not write it over again? I 
am at the Long Key Viaduct now. I have been 
thinking of you so much that I ” 

“I don’t care to have your opinion of me shouted 
all over Key West,” was her scathing interruption. 
“That big, blue-shirted man across the street is 
listening and making queer motions with his arms. 
Is he one of your friends?” 

Thomas glared daggers at the restless provost- 
marshal, and recalled his duty to the Quarter-boat 
nine, as he feebly answered: 

“Yes, the best friend I ever had, but he is an awful 
bully. I have come down here to pitch in a base- 
ball game this afternoon between teams of our men. 
Hogan yonder wants to drag me off for practice.” 

Miss Helen was instantly diverted and exclaimed 
with impulsive eagerness: 

“Isn’t that fine! Do you know, I have not seen 
a good base-ball game in ages and ages — not since 
I went with father to the final Elmsford-Markham 
College match a year ago. Where did you learn to 
pitch?’' 


157 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Thomas winked hard, felt his face become hotter 
and hotter, and almost revealed his own secret. 
Shame held him back from making a clean breast 
of it, but he could not help telling her, anxious 
as he was to be considered no ordinary brand of 
hobo: 

“Oh, I played a little in college, but I didn’t stay 
there long.” 

“There, I was sure you had been to college,” she 
cried with an air of triumph. “I argued with father 
up and down, and Levi backed me loyally. I did 
not hear you say very much, but your few remarks 
were so delightfully slangy.” 

“Um, speaks well for a college education, doesn’t 
it?” commented Thomas. “This game will not 
resemble an Elmsford-Markham contest. It prom- 
ises to be a fine imitation of Donnybrook Fair. 
Otherwise I should invite you to see it.” 

“Could I not drive out in a carriage, with Levi on 
the front seat as chaperon?” was her exceedingly 
rash suggestion. “Really I am on a spree to-day, 
and ready for desperate enterprises.” 

“I don’t know,” and Thomas shook his head. 
“Perhaps you might drive ’way down into the out- 
field, far away from the crowd. My friend Hogan 
will see that nobody goes near you. But I am 
afraid ” 

Hogan could be patient no longer. Advancing 
158 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 


with a most determined air, his hat in his hand, he 
bowed low and sweetly observed: 

‘^I hate meself for intruding for I^d not blame any 
young man for walking a thousand miles to have a 
word with you. Miss, but the call of duty is trump- 
etin’ loudly for this Thomas lad and I shrink from 
making a scene of violence. Play ball. Remember 
the motto of the Quarter-boats, ‘We eat ’em alive.’ ” 

This voluble manifesto was received in dead si- 
lence. Thomas was so taken aback that he failed to 
find words to express emotions of any kind and with 
a blundering, incoherent kind of a goodbye he was 
wafted from the presence of the amazed Helen, who 
said to herself, and her smile deserved Hogan’s eulogy: 

“There goes one man I should like to have father 
meet. It would be a famous bump. He has that 
poor boy as tame as a kitten, there is no doubt about 
that. And if Levi will let me, I am going to see that 
base-ball game.” 

To the almost hysterical expostulations of Thomas 
Winthrop Meserve, the sergeant paid no heed, but 
hurried him across the island of Key West in a forced 
march and safely delivered him to Captain McFar- 
land of the Quarter-boat nine with the concise order: 

“Take him and keep him. He is more worry 
than a squad of recruits.” 

An hour of hard practice made the Freshman for- 
get that he had any other interest than base-ball, 
159 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


and the loud praise of his fellow athletes gave him 
courage and confidence. As the hour of the game 
drew near, the spectators mustered beneath their 
respective banners and marched defiantly into the 
grand-stand, the hostile groups eying each other 
with great contempt. Larger crowds may have 
flocked to cheer contesting nines upon this tropic 
diamond, but certain it is that partisanship had 
never flamed more hotly than among this stalwart 
assemblage. 

A Cuban player of local fame had been persuaded 
to take his life in his hands and essay the role of 
umpire. It was observed that his complexion be- 
came almost bleached after a hasty survey of the 
onlookers, and he pleaded a sudden engagement 
elsewhere in accents that were slightly tremulous. 
There was no sympathy with his evident eagerness 
to dodge his responsibilities and he advanced to his 
post of duty with the air of a patriot insurgent 
about to be led out and riddled by a Spanish firing 
party. Before this unfortunate umpire could cock 
an expert eye at the first ball pitched, a tumultuous 
Sand Flea roared in stentorian tones: 

‘T don’t believe he is game, boys. We want 
nobody passing judgment on our world-beaters un- 
less he has sand in his craw. Let’s try him out.” 

With this the orator flourished a revolver and 
banged away at the official. At least a score of 
i6o 


A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 


snouting Sand Fleas instantaneously did likewise, 
unlimbering their artillery with admirable prompt- 
ness in a crackling fusillade. The umpire delayed 
not for argument but sped toward the nearest gate 
in a series of frantic leaps and when last seen was 
careering along the highway in full cry and profaning 
the air with strange Spanish oaths. 

“What did I tell you?” queried the Sand Flea 
aforementioned. “I told you he wasn’t game. He 
might have known we were only wasting blank car- 
tridges, but he was too scared to figger it out. Now, 
before we play ball, we want a real umpire, and that 
goes.” 

There ensued much loud wrangling and it was per- 
ceived that corralling another unbiased native would 
be no easy task. In fact, it was reasonable to as- 
sume that Key West base-ball talent would be con- 
siderably gun-shy. At length there emerged from 
the press of disputants a chunky, broad-shouldered, 
red-headed person who hitched up his khaki breeches 
with the air of a sailor-man and announced in thun- 
derous tones: 

“ My name is Mitchell. I don’t belong with either 
gang of you. I was workin’ in Bahia Honda camp 
and I came down here and blew my wages and went 
busted. Being in need of a ten-spot I’ll take a 
chance of your murderin’ me, and I’ll umpire this 
ball game. If you don’t like my decisions. I’ll be 

i6i 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

ready to take you on, two at a time, after the ninth 
inning.*’ 

“Hooray for old Red-top.” “You’re the stuff.” 
“Mitchell is good enough for us,” shouted the ap- 
proving audience. 

This valiant volunteer strode to the home plate, 
rolled up his sleeve, tilted a battered straw hat over 
one eye, and growled between his teeth: 

“Batter up.” 


162 


CHAPTER XI 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 

Meanwhile the Quarter-boat nine had taken 
the field and was broiling beneath the summer sun. 
The Freshman pitcher was the youngest of them all, 
a trim, lithe figure of a lad, clad in white ducks and 
a sleeveless shirt, his blond head bare. He looked 
around him at his comrades. They wore no uni- 
forms, but even in their stained, patched working 
garb, their aspect was reassuring. Most of them 
handled themselves like ball-players and they faced 
the uproarious, menacing grand-stand with stolid 
indifference. Thomas Winthrop Meserve glanced 
beyond the field, this time with wistful, hopeful 
eagerness, but there was never a sign of the lady fair, 
and he turned to face the first batter, realizing how 
insane it was to expect to see Helen Eastabrook. 

Crack! The stalwart third baseman of the Sand 
Fleas smote the first ball pitched and drove it at 
short stop, a clean hit but for Tim McFarland, the 
‘‘has-been,’^ who dived after it, achieved a miracle 
of a catch, and whipped the ball across the diamond 
163 


THE fugitive' FRESHMAN 

longer afraid of Terry Flynn, which discovery pleased 
and surprised him, and held him steady as a rock 
for the finish of the ordeal. Of course it seemed 
absurd to believe that he, a Freshman player, should 
assume to strike out this League veteran, but never- 
theless — Thud!! He had hurled a wicked missile 
of an inshoot into the sure hands of Jenks, and 
Flynn had let it pass him without trying for it. 

‘‘Three strikes. Batter out,’’ howled the umpire. 

Flynn dashed his bat to the ground, wheeled, and 
glaring blackly at the self-reliant official, began to 
say: 

“That a strike? You robber. I’ll ” 

Picking up the discarded bat, Mr. Mitchell stepped 
forward, not in a flurried fashion, but very rapidly, 
and poked the critic in the stomach so that he sat 
down abruptly and was too busy gasping for breath 
to venture further comments. 

“The next time you let out one whisper, you will 
get the thick end of a bat behind the ear, and your 
team will find another pitcher, see ?” said the umpire. 

The Sand Fleas protested at having their star 
performer crippled but they subsided as soon as 
Terry Flynn hobbled to the bench and showed some 
interest in the incidents of the game. The elation 
of Thomas was somewhat tempered by a two-bagger 
as neatly achieved by the captain of the Sand Fleas, 
but the inning ended with no runs made, and excite- 

i66 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 


merit was already at high-water mark. Now it 
came the turn of Terry Flynn as pitcher to wreak a 
masterly revenge, and he had so far recovered from 
the umpire’s forceful admonition that he prevented 
the Quarter-boats from scoring and had the peculiar 
satisfaction of throwing Thomas out after a puerile 
attempt at a bunt. 

After several innings, during which fielding errors 
and timely hitting gathered runs for both teams, the 
score see-sawed into the seventh, where it was tied 
at 6 — 6. Never in his base-ball career at college 
had the Freshman pitched with so much cool-headed 
efficiency, nor had his endurance begun to flag. 
Terry Flynn, the terrible, was showing signs of wear 
and tear, yet the skill and strategy bred of long ex- 
perience as a professional enabled him to extricate 
himself from tight corners and to baffle the amateurs 
who faced him. 

Tom Meserve was trudging over to the bench 
after pitching a strenuous inning, when no fewer 
than three carriages entered the gate and halted at 
some distance from the crowd. He rubbed his eyes, 
for he had fondly hoped to see no more than one. 
Presently several gentlemen of solid, prosperous ap- 
pearance alighted and waited while one of their 
number assisted a girl of engaging beauty and es- 
corted her to a station near the out-held. Thomas 
gasped at recognizing Helen Eastabrook attended 
167 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


by this distinguished-looking body-guard and was 
sorely puzzled. His confusion was made worse 
when Hogan came down from his perch and brought 
this information: 

‘^Our engineer boss at Long Key has gone over 
to meet them. I heard him say it was the president 
and the general manager of the road, and the chief 
engineer of construction, with other big bugs. ’Tis 
an inspection party. They have just come down 
from the keys in the president’s yacht. Now play 
ball, or you will lose your job.” 

‘‘Ball be hanged! What in the world, what — 
what — is she doing with them?” implored Thomas, 
his eyes fairly bulging. “Who is she?” 

Ever ready with a hair-trigger solution of any 
problem, Hogan promptly answered: 

“Easy enough. Tommy. They knew her father 
before he looted the bank, and they are tryin’ to 
extract the dark secret of his present whereabouts 
from her. Where is he at ? ’Tis a most distressful 
accident for her that she met up with them at all, 
you may be sure. Maybe they are holdin’ her as a 
hostage, I dunno. But it is more’n half likely. I 
told you he was a fat outlaw. And the poor girl is 
discovered.” 

“Oh, bosh. Jack. The mystery is thicker than 
ever. Heavens, it is my next turn at bat and I am 
clean up in the air.” 


i68 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 


In a fog of surprise and bewilderment Thomas 
strode to the plate, helpless to hit anything smaller 
than a toy balloon, and gazed at Terry Flynn with 
an absent smile. That he miserably struck out 
goes without saying, and as he slunk back to the 
bench, the angry voice of Hogan hissed in his 
ear: 

‘T am ashamed of you. I thought I was making 
a man of ye, you whimperin’, useless lump of putty. 
And the girl had her two eyes on you waiting for 
that home run she expects you to make for love of 
her. Get to it.” 

The word had been passed through the grand- 
stand that the group of sedate gentlemen standing 
at the edge of the field comprised the highest officials 
of the railroad and the construction work, and the 
untamed crowd would have been diverted to hear 
the general manager say to the division engineer, 
who greeted him: 

‘‘We happened to discover a wild-eyed Cuban 
who looked as if he had run himself to death. He 
was delivering an oration in front of a cigar store, 
and we gathered from his incoherent remarks that 
he had been trying to umpire a game between teams 
from the keys. So we drove out to see the fun. Any 
blood spilled so far?” 

“No, the men are behaving beautifully, sir. They 
are a picked lot and really they had earned a holiday 
169 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


spree. Would you care to take seats in the stand? 
The finish of this game is likely to be a corker.’’ 

The general manager turned to the white-haired 
president and asked: 

^‘How about making ourselves comfortable and 
getting a better view ? This is base-ball worth com- 
ing to see. I had no idea there was so much talent 
in the camps.” 

The president’s eyes twinkled and he needed no 
urging, but he looked at Helen Eastabrook as he 
replied : 

‘‘Do you think the language will sound precisely 
conventional at close range?” 

The division engineer took it upon himself to reply: 

“I will answer for the men, sir. The sight of the 
lady herself will be enough.” 

As the party moved toward the grand-stand, the 
general manager asked: 

“By the way, who is the youngster pitching for 
the Quarter-boat gang? I don’t remember seeing 
him in camp. What is he doing?” 

, “He reported to me only yesterday. Carson sent 
him down from Upper Matacumbe Key with a note 
advising me to push him ahead. He is chumming 
with a first-rate foreman, Hogan, an old regular 
army sergeant.” 

They were passing behind third base and Hogan 
chanced to be helping coach a fleet-footed Quarter- 
170 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 

boat runner who had just slid from second in a cloud 
of dust. The division engineer lowered his voice 
and went on: 

‘‘Here is Hogan, now. The big chap in the blue 
shirt. He can tell you all about the young pitcher.” 

“I will see him after the game. What is the name 
of the lad, do you happen to know?” 

“Winthrop, he calls himself, sir.” 

“U-m, I was about to send an order to have him 
looked up.” The general manager halted long 
enough to take a letter from his pocket and read it 
hastily, after which he remarked: 

“Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Jr., is the young 
man I am requested to find. This is from his father. 
I am to ship him home to be spanked. Glad I don’t 
have to do the spanking. He looks as hard as nails.” 

Now Hogan, absorbed in his noisy task, heard none 
of this conversation, but there followed a brief lull 
and he did overhear Miss Helen Eastabrook exclaim 
in most indignant accents: 

“I think it a perfect shame. It is worse than that. 
Outrageous, I call it. No matter what he has done, 
he ought to be allowed to make his own choice. 
This is treating him like a criminal. Really, I feel 
obliged to intercede. He is trying to atone for his 
past and is as manly as can be about it.” 

The little group moved on while the general man- 
ager, quite taken aback, apologized for stirring up 
171 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


such a tempest and asked Miss Eastabrook how in 
the world she happened to be interested in the fort- 
unes of this attractive derelict. Hogan, however, 
heard nothing of the explanation, and jumped to the 
natural conclusion that Helen had been pleading in 
behalf of her father. The sergeant sorrowfully 
shook his head and muttered to himself: 

‘H told you so. I was right on the very first guess. 
The big railroad boss knows the dark secret and the 
poor girl is worried distracted for fear he may pry 
the old man loose from his hidin’-place. And she 
was beseechin’ him to have mercy! Oh, dear, oh, 
dear, this will be cruel news for Tommy. I will 
hold it up for now. So the fat pirate is busy keep- 
ing out of jail. There’s a proper father-in-law for 
ye, Thomas, me lad. Another bomb-shell for the 
gilded mansion in Cleveland.” 

Ignorant of this harrowing revelation, Thomas 
went in to pitch just as the visitors were climbing to 
an empty corner of the grand-stand. The Sand 
Fleas had gained a lead of one run and the game 
was in the eighth inning. The Freshman’s wits 
were somewhat confused, for he could not be oblivi- 
ous to the ‘‘girl proposition,” and he gave two bases 
on balls before settling down to pitch a whirlwind 
finish. Then, alas, the Sand Fleas fell upon him 
with wicked onslaught and drove out three hits which 
brought home two runs before the bombardment 
172 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 


was checked. Thomas was perspiring and wilted 
as he sought Tim McFarland and begged him to 
pitch out the final inning. 

‘^Nonsense, you aren’t dead yet,” exclaimed the 
veteran. ‘‘This crowd of ours expects you to pull 
the game out, and Heaven help you if you don’t. 
Terry Flynn is about due to blow up. His knees are 
wobbling. Don’t lose your sand.” 

The familiar word stung the Freshman to the 
quick. “Sandless” was what he had been in col- 
lege and the lack of sand had made him a fugitive. 
Unwittingly, Tim McFarland had said precisely the 
right word in due season. Thomas chewed his lip 
and sat with fists clenched while McFarland, by way 
of showing that he practised what he preached, 
strolled to the plate, gripped his bat with nonchalant 
bearing, and promptly whanged the ball into deep 
right field for two bases. The Quarter-boats 
stamped and roared and the flimsy grand-stand 
creaked and swayed. Their standard-bearer charged 
out on the field and displayed the terrifying legend 
which the stormy partisans chanted in deep-throated 
unison! 

WE EAT 'EM ALIVE. 

The coaches bellowed and shook their fists, ear- 
nestly striving to avoid epithets that might shock a 
lady’s ears, but breathing sudden death and destruc- 
173 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


tion nevertheless. Luck and a brief panic among 
the infielders gleaned two runs for the Quarter-boats 
and the eighth inning ended with the Sand Fleas only 
one run ahead. Thomas dared not look for some 
sign of recognition from Helen Eastabrook. He 
had failed at everything else he had ever undertaken 
and it looked as if he were to be whipped even as a 
base-ball player. 

Hogan gripped his hand as the Quarter-boats 
were about to take the field for the first half of the 
ninth inning and whispered: 

‘‘You admired me, Tommy, the first day we met, 
because the harder I fell the higher I bounced. ’Tis 
going to be the same with you. I have tried to show 
you all this time that a good man is never licked till 
his friends have to send for the undertaker.’’ 

The Freshman smiled, swallowed a lump in his 
throat, and took his position, ready for the last op- 
portunity to show his mettle as a pitcher in this con- 
test that seemed so vital to him. Fortunately the 
Sand Fleas had worked toward the tail-end of their 
batting list in the preceding inning, and there were 
no old professionals to match their cunning against 
his skill. To the honest amazement of Thomas he 
struck out two men with automatic precision, but 
he was not yet out of the woods. The left-fielder 
juggled an easy fly for a harrowing instant and 
dropped it. Then Thomas himself slipped and 
174 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 


fell in trying to scoop up a bunt, and two runners 
were on the bases. It was even more disconcerting 
to have the umpire call ^Tour balls’’ on the next 
batter, and the bases were filled. 

Now came the terrible Terry Flynn to the plate, 
and the immortal Casey himself could have appeared 
no more insultingly confident of making nothing 
short of a clean home-run. Sand Fleas and Quarter- 
boats had swarmed out of the grand-stand and were 
crowding and jostling toward the base lines. The 
din was deafening. The truculent umpire was as 
calm as a May morning, but he clutched a heavy 
bat and was prepared to sell his life dearly. Thomas 
Meserve glanced at the bases and at the capering, 
yelling runners who were shaking their fists at him. 
Flynn grinned derisively and asked the Freshman 
to ‘‘toss it over before he fainted dead away.” 

A few moments later, Tim McFarland was mur- 
muring in a dazed kind of fashion : 

“Three balls and two strikes, and the bases filled. 
And a doctor once told me my heart was weak! If 
I live through this. I’ll telegraph him that he is seven 
kinds of a liar.” 

The emotions of Jhomas Winthrop Meserve, Jr., 
were beyond all analysis. He pitched the crucial 
ball and Terry Flynn hit it. Thomas intuitively 
threw up his right hand, felt a cruel stab of pain, 
saw the ball fall at his feet, blindly dived for it, and 
175 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


flung it at first base. Terry Flynn was thrown out 
by a hair’s-breadth and the peril was past. The 
pitcher fought off the rampant Quarter-boats who 
were thumping him breathless and implored: 

‘‘Go easy. I broke two fingers, but it was worth 
it.’’ 

“I never thought you could stop that ball. It was 
due to keep on going till it hit salt water,” said Mc- 
Farland. “We’ll carry you to a doctor in a jiffy.” 

“Not until you bat this game out,” said Tom. 
*^NoWj you have got to win itP 

He sat down feeling weak and unstrung, while 
Hogan, a rough-and-ready surgeon of no small skill, 
investigated the damaged fingers and improvised a 
splint. 

“I am afraid I can’t go to bat this time,” mourned 
the Freshman. 

“ But you made base-ball history for the island of 
Key West,” was Hogan’s cheerful comment. “For 
once in me life I would ha’ ducked if that ball you 
stopped had been aimed my way. And the big 
boss himself saw you do it, and there will be no 
trouble about your layin’ off to mend your fingers. 
I will not mention the girl. ’Tis not the proper 
time.” 

Thomas was about to ask why, but the Quarter- 
boats were ready for action, with two runs to make 
to win in the last half of the ninth inning. 

176 



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THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 


‘H was hoping to make a home run and be a real 
hero in a neck-and-neck finish,” sighed the cripple. 
^^But Tim McFarland will have to wind it up with 
one of his famous, old-time sensations.” 

The nerves of pitcher Terry Flynn had been 
severely taxed and he was a pitcher that had gone 
too often, not to the well, but to the bottle. Victory 
had seemed certain for the Sand Fleas until the 
Freshman turned the tide earlier in this final inning. 
Now the issue was in doubt, and Flynn was not the 
man to fight his way out of a desperate situation. 
He had been out-pitched and out-played by the 
despised ‘^college kid” and his confidence in him- 
self was shaken. The Quarter-boats hated him to 
a man, and he had lost the respect of most of his own 
comrades. 

As if they had fathomed his forebodings that his 
Waterloo impended, the Quarter-boat batters went 
after his delivery with savage, gleeful energy, taking 
long chances, reaching for balls that they ought to 
have let alone, hammering out long flies, sizzling 
grounders, deadly drives across the infield, a veri- 
table fusillade. The pitcher had gone to pieces in 
the last ditch, and although his fellows stood up 
nobly under fire and fielded really better than they 
knew how, the game had been wrested from their 
hands. As if it had been foreordained, Tim McFar- 
land made the spectacular home-run which rang 
177 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


down the curtain and made the doughty Quarter- 
boats handsomely victorious. 

Thomas had been nursing his aching fingers, re- 
gretting that he could have no part in this joyful 
finale, and wondering how he might have a word 
with Helen Eastabrook. Alas, he was only a hum- 
ble laborer in a vast army of such, and it would be 
rash presumption for him to venture to address her 
in the presence of her high-and-mighty escort. This 
depressing train of thought was abruptly derailed 
when the tumultuous crowd of quarter-boat men 
came rushing toward him like a land-slide, the mem- 
bers of the nine in the van, and acclaimed him as the 
hero of the engagement. They were for hoisting 
him upon their shoulders but McFarland yelled: 

Don’t jolt him, boys. No rough-house. He is 
bunged up.” 

“Then we’ll carry him to town all ship-shape and 
elegant,” shouted somebody else, and there was a 
scramble for the fence, a section of which was plucked 
up by the roots. Strong arms carried this spacious 
stretcher, a dozen coats were flung upon the planks, 
and with no chance to protest, Thomas was carefully 
seated thereon and borne from the field to the ac- 
companiment of a far-resounding chorus: 

There’ll be a hot time in the old town to-night. 

The Sand Fleas, good sportsmen that they were, 
178 


THOMAS PITCHES FOR HIS LIFE 


trailed behind, and the hero was whisked from the 
field and into the highway like a Roman general 
returning from a field of glory in his litter. The 
division engineer, who had hastened to find Thomas 
with a message from the general manager, viewed 
the demonstration, hesitated, and was baffled, for 
it would have taken a battering-ram to make a path 
through this close-packed, howling mob four hun- 
dred strong. Chagrined, he retreated to report to 
the general manager that the young man had been 
snatched away beyond recall, and that he would be 
held for orders after his return to Long Key. 

Right you are,” said the general manager. ‘‘We 
have no time to head him off at the steamer. We 
were due at the conference with the War Department 
officials at the barracks fifteen minutes ago. I 
plead guilty. That ball game was something to 
remember. And that youngster has good stuff in 
him. I shall be sorry to lose him from your pay- 
roll.” 

Helen Eastabrook, who was an intensely interested 
listener, looked confused and kept silent. She had 
been forward and impulsive in defending poor 
Thomas and she must be more discreet. To her- 
self, however, her native candor compelled her to 
confess that she was unhappy at the thought of see- 
ing the boyish, attractive fugitive no more among 
the keys. He was to be whisked from this romantic, 
179 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


tropical world, far away to his own people, and there 
would be no more letters, no more chance meetings, 
no more adventures, and he would straightway for- 
get the girl he had met on Little Spanish Key. 


i8o 


CHAPTER XII 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

The general manager of the Florida Railway and 
Navigation Company was an extremely busy man, 
burdened with vast responsibilities; for to him had 
been entrusted the supervision of the extension of the 
system to Key West. He commanded both an army 
and a navy, and every day brought a myriad details 
and anxieties, and of these, perhaps the least impor- 
tant was the fate of Thomas Winthrop, so-called. 
He intended sending a written order to Long Key 
to have the young man shipped to Jacksonville in 
charge of a trustworthy keeper, and it was also his 
purpose to telegraph the father of the fugitive to 
meet him there. Urgent business called the general 
manager to New York, however, immediately after 
the cyclonic base-ball game, and he forgot the matter 
for the time. 

The division engineer at Long Key was a methodi- 
cal person who waited for the written order which 
failed to arrive, and meanwhile said nothing to 
Thomas, who rejoined Quarter-Boat Number Ten 

i8i 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


and dutifully toiled and royally bossed his crew of 
men who were handling material upon the viaduct. 
They overlooked his youth and were cheerfully 
obedient because he had won their respect and was 
rated a man of courage and strength who had played 
base-ball like a master and won shining renown for 
his comrades. 

Hogan was proud of this bantam of his and swore 
there was never a lad like him. They had one very 
painful interview which fell little short of a quarrel 
when the sergeant related, with solemn emphasis and 
a very long face, the damning facts gleaned from the 
outspoken protests of Helen Eastabrook, which he 
had overheard at the base-ball field. Hogan was 
stubbornly certain that his theory concerning that 
‘Tat outlaw,’’ Mr. Stephen Eastabrook, was con- 
firmed thereby, while Thomas, flinging reason to 
the winds, passionately declared that a girl as beau- 
tiful and as altogether perfect as he knew Helen must 
be, could not have a scamp and a fugitive from jus- 
tice for a father. He was inwardly disquieted, 
nevertheless, and was so low-spirited for some time 
thereafter that Hogan was smitten with contrition 
and tactfully weakened enough to declare: 

“I’ll agree to suspend judgment. I’ll even say 
that her old man is a leadin’ philanthropist, heavily 
disguised, who is doing missionary work among these 
heathens down here, if only you will chirk up, Tom- 
182 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

my, and look less like a dyin’ sheep. You put a 
crimp in my appetite. Smile, for the love o’ Heaven, 
smile before you forget how.” 

Thomas coaxed a smile or two, smothered his 
sighs, and fell to planning how he might make a 
landing at Little Spanish Key and meet Helen with- 
out running afoul either of a spring-gun or of Mr. 
Stephen Eastabrook, who could be classed as an 
explosive machine even more dangerous. 

The fates so ordered it, however, that the Fresh- 
man was never again to find his way to that enchanted 
perilous islet and there behold the princess who 
dwelt in the pineapple patch guarded by its barbed- 
wire rampart and the roaring dragon of a parent. It 
befell one sultry evening that he was lounging on 
the balcony of Quarter-Boat Number Ten chatting 
with Hogan and a group of their ship-mates who 
were restlessly complaining of the smothering, wind- 
less heat. The breeze which usually swept in from 
seaward after twilight had suddenly died. The 
stars that shone so large and lustrous in this soft, 
tropic sky were dimmed in a curious, filmy mist. 
The song of the surf on the outer barrier of keys was 
unusually loud, although the sea slept almost without 
swell or ripple. A brawny derrick-man ripped open 
the collar of his shirt and exclaimed: 

‘‘The life is all gone out of me. The air is dead. 
I was caught in a hurricane in Barbadoes once when 
183 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


I was building a dock, and blow me if it didn’t feel 
just like this before she struck us.” 

hurricane wouldn’t do a thing to these keys 
and the whole works,” said another voice. ‘H’ve 
thought of it many a time, haven’t you, boys?” 

‘'The engineers figured it all out, you bet,” cried 
Hogan. “They aren’t spending ten million dollars 
to have it blown away in the first big wind. They 
are plenty wise enough to make the job hurricane- 
proof or they wouldn’t be here. ’Tis a rippin’, 
rampageous, murderin’ night, right enough, for heat 
and mosquitoes. But I’m ..going to sleep on this 
quarter-boat with never a thought of hurricanes. 
Hullo, who is that coming aboard? They just 
passed from under the arc light. Looked like Fitz- 
herbert and old man Jones, Tommy.” 

Presently the tall Englishman strolled out on the 
balcony and sat upon the railing while Jones unob- 
trusively stood in a shadowy corner. The sight 
of them recalled to Thomas his first hours ,on the 
keys. It seemed years since that wretched, hopeless 
journey from New York. 

“Singing any songs these days, Fitzherbert ?” 
asked Hogan. “Can’t you give us a ditty to make 
us forget our troubles?” 

The Englishman said nothing but straightway 
began to sing “Robin Adair” and the rough company 
listened in silence, nor was there any loud talking 

184 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

after the song was done. Tom felt a hand on his 
sleeve and turned to face Jones, the old book-keeper, 
who whispered: 

found Fitzherbert in Key West, wages all gone, 
down and out. He had pawned his coat for rum 
and was sitting on a wharf late at night singing to 
break your heart. He is very much the gentleman, 
is Fitzherbert, drunk or sober. I have become quite 
fond of him. He once held the Queen’s commission 
in a cavalry regiment, in the Soudan, and all that.” 

“What is he doing now — still on the upper stretch 
of work?” asked the Freshman. 

“No, he went straight for a while and was shifted 
in charge of a cement mixing plant with the floating 
equipment. His barge is out near the end of the 
viaduct, towed there yesterday. I am still at the 
old camp, but I am hung up here for to-night. Have 
you a spare bunk?” 

“Plenty of them. Help yourself, Mr. Jones. 
S-s-sh, Fitzherbert is singing ^Kathleen Mavour- 
neen.’ He will make me cry like a child if I don’t 
watch out. My stars, what a voice!” 

One song followed another, and several voices, 
strong and true, picked up the refrain, until men from 
other quarter-boats began to come on board to listen 
to the sentimental concert. Before long a messenger 
came from the division engineer’s head-quarters with 
an order which hastily dispersed the company: 

185 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


^^Make everything fast as soon as possible. Se- 
cure all floating equipment with double moorings. 
Every man will at once report to his own foreman 
and stand by.’’ 

“What did I tell you?” cried one of the men. 
“The tip is out for a hurricane, and God help them 
that can’t swim.” 

“Oh, shut up. We want no false alarms,” 
growled Hogan. “The assistant engineer boss of 
Number Ten is away for to-night and he won’t vent- 
ure back if the weather looks too heavy for his 
launch. That puts me in charge and every man 
that doesn’t belong aboard here will vamoose. Our 
gang will jump ashore to make all fast, and clear 
away all loose material and pick up odds and ends. 
Come on, Thomas, fetch your boys along.” 

“I must be getting back to my barge,” said Fitz- 
herbert. “Jones, you had better stay aboard the 
quarter-boat to-night.” 

“But your barge may go adrift if it blows hard,” 
timidly objected the book-keeper. “Why not stay 
here?” 

Fitzherbert laughed and called back as he ran 
for the beach: 

“I fancy I’ll stand by my ship while she floats.” 

He was singing when they last saw him, and pres- 
ently they heard him still singing as he rowed his 
skiff over the quiet water where the electric lights of 

i86 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

the huddled flotilla of dredges and barges spattered 
the darkness with starry scintillations. Tim Mc- 
Farland, a man to stand at Hogan’s right hand in 
any emergency, indicated the many craft far out 
along the viaduct and said as the quarter-boat crew 
scrambled ashore: 

‘‘We can’t do anything worse than get piled up on 
the beach, but if those lads yonder begin to drift 
they will be smashed into kindling-wood, between 
colliding with each other and ramming the viaduct, 
eh. Jack?” 

“There’s half a mile of shoal water to break the 
seas and it would take a bigger wind than you or me 
ever saw blow to pull them loose, Tim. But between 
us, I wish our two-story hotel was fastened to a good, 
deep stone cellar.” 

An hour later the division engineer visited the 
quarter-boat and inspected the provisions made for 
its safety. The men crowded around him and 
clamored for news of the weather. Some of them 
were already timorous and begged to be shifted to 
the camp ashore. The engineer was imperturbable 
and listened attentively to the eager questions hurled 
at him. At length, he made answer with delibera- 
tion, as if carefully choosing his words: 

“The launch sent down with the Weather Bu- 
reau’s hurricane warning ran aground and was hung 
up for several hours or I should have notified you 
187 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


sooner, boys. The chances are a hundred to one 
that the storm will miss us. We are barely on the 
edge of the track of the West Indian storms, as 
shown by the records at head-quarters. We have a 
million dollars’ worth of equipment afloat, and the 
chance of heavy weather has been kept in mind from 
the start of the work. My honest opinion is that 
you are as safe here as you would be ashore on the 
key, and I am sure you will be more comfortable. 
We have nothing but tents for the men, as you know,- 
and if it comes on to blow hard they will be knocked 
flat. However, you may take your choice. All who 
wish to quit the quarter-boat can go back with me.” 

Two score of sheepish men sifted out of the crowd, 
rolled up their blankets, and gathered near the gang- 
way. No one accused them of cowardice but it was 
plain to read that they felt they were losing caste 
among their fellows. Hogan called the Freshman 
aside and told him: 

‘Hf you are the least bit jumpy about this propo- 
sition, I don’t want you to stay aboard to-night. It 
will not be laid up against you. Tommy, understand ? ” 

The engineer happened to notice this conference 
and drew near enough to say: 

Hello, Winthrop. How are the broken fingers? 
By the way, the general manager mentioned some- 
thing about sending me an order to transfer you, but 
the document has not arrived. Of course, I don’t 

i88 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

want to make the other men uneasy, but I sort of 
feel responsible for you, and I should like to have 
you where I can keep an eye on you until the weather 
clears. Better come along and bunk with one of 
my foremen ashore.” 

Do you mean that as a positive order, sir ? ” The 
Freshman stood at attention as if he were on parade, 
and Hogan smiled to himself as he silently noted 
this resolute demeanor. ‘‘If you don’t mind, I pre- 
fer to stay with my men. We are not in the least 
worried. I ought to help take care of the company’s 
property, and — well — we Quarter-boats hang to- 
gether, sir.” 

Reluctant to press the matter lest he might seem 
alarmed, the engineer laughed and exclaimed: 

“Very well, I dare not argue if you have that base- 
ball team of yours behind you. I’ll be down again 
before midnight, Hogan. There is not the slightest 
sign of wind and we have had these government 
warnings before with nothing doing. Be sure you 
have plenty of spare hawsers and chains. Store- 
house Number Two will be open all night and you 
can get any stuff you want without a requisition.” 

The speaker caught up his lantern and set off to 
meet other anxious engineers who were making tours 
along the viaduct and among the floating equipment. 
The dread of a hurricane had haunted them through 
the months of toil afloat. Given time to finish the 
189 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


work and they would have no fears, but meanwhile 
they must gamble with the sea and the weather for 
huge stakes in lives and property. Their grave 
responsibility was akin to that of so many generals 
continually menaced by a hostile force of over- 
whelming strength. 

Apparently these anxieties were not shared by the 
hundred men who had remained on board of Quar- 
ter-Boat Number Ten. They felt secure enough, 
and continued fitfully to curse the windless heat, 
played cards and talked in little groups, or sprawled 
upon their cots. It was to be noted, however, that 
not a man was asleep, even when the hour wore on 
toward midnight. The sound of the distant surf 
became louder, rising to a long, booming note which 
betokened a heavy sea, a singular portent during a 
dead calm. At length there came a cold, gusty 
draught of wind out of the north-east. It lasted but 
a moment and the night was once more still and 
lifeless. The men at the tables picked up the cards 
that had been blown about like leaves, and, shivering, 
began to hunt for their coats. 

Some of them went to the windows, others flocked 
upon the balconies and stared at the sky from which 
the stars had fled. Instead of the pallid film of mist 
there were heavy, ragged clouds moving rapidly, 
more and more of them until they filled the sky and 
the blackest darkness imaginable closed down like a 
190 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

vast curtain so that nothing outside was distinguish- 
able except the bravely twinkling lights of the craft 
moored near the viaduct. Again the chilling wind 
soughed out of the north, this time with greater power 
and duration, then another lull, followed by a violent 
downpour of rain. 

Now the wind drove down in fiercer blasts, with 
briefer intervals between, and the timbers of the tall 
quarter-boat swayed and complained. A pile of 
crockery toppled from a cupboard shelf and was 
smashed upon the floor. Even the men of the ‘^dy- 
namite gang,’’ whose nerves were almost invulnerable, 
jumped as if they had been shot at and revealed the 
fact that the strain of waiting was taxing their en- 
durance. A little later and there were no more inter- 
mittent gusts. They had merged in the roaring 
onset of the hurricane itself. It did not instantly 
swoop down with all its power, but steadily blew 
harder, and its voice was a titanic crescendo. Men 
who had seen the instantaneous onslaught of cyclones 
in the Western country were ignorant of the habits 
of the tropical hurricane and scoffingly called it no 
more than a big gale of wind. But the brawny der- 
rick-man who had been in Barbadoes shouted con- 
temptuous comment: 

“You fat-heads talk nonsense. This is the real 
thing. I know the symptoms. Another hour more 
and the wind will be fierce enough to blow the hair 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


off a dog. You yaps don’t know what wind is. If 
we’re really caught, I’d as soon be here as ashore. 
The sea will be makin’ a holy mess of Long Key by 
daybreak, you hear me.” 

Already the breakers were stamping across the 
shoal water and battering the hull of the quarter- 
boat, which had never before rocked at her sheltered 
moorings. It was no more intended to be seaworthy 
than is a workingman’s tenement. There was 
staunch, honest construction, however, to safeguard 
the hundred men; stout timbers, planks, and brac- 
ing above and below. The rising tide, heaped up 
by the might of the wind, soon surrounded this un- 
wieldy hulk. Instead of resting at the edge of the 
beach, she was tossing in a waste of white water. 
Those of her company who had a mind to quit her 
thus early in the hurricane were unable to do so. 
They were cut off from the land by a wide barrier of 
surf which gleamed gray and ghostly in the spray- 
swept darkness. 

“Many a poor man ashore has no roof over his 
head to-night,” said Hogan. “Here we are all snug 
and tight, and no bosses to bother us. And old 
Number Ten is standin’ up to it like a liner. The 
harder it blows the farther up on the key we’ll be 
stranded to-morrow.” 

This was sound comfort, although the fury of the 
wind was increasing and the quarter-boat was in 
192 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

danger of being torn to fragments or of whirling 
away piecemeal. There was no opportunity for 
seamanship. Either the structure would survive, or 
it would not. Leadership, command, found their 
duties in maintaining organization and discipline 
among the common herd, in keeping the human soul 
en masse ready and braced for whatever crisis might 
later befall. 

Thomas Meserve did not realize that he was nearer 
death than he had ever been before. A little squad 
of men, all of them his elders, looked to him for or- 
ders and manifested by their words and bearing that 
he had authority over them. This was sufficient 
stimulus to make him forget himself, and he was 
alert to stay the first symptoms of panic, which, if 
unchecked, would surely make an inferno of Quarter- 
Boat Number Ten. 

Thus far the boat had suffered no serious harm, 
although her superstructure was twisted and rent, 
and rain and spray flooded through openings where 
planks had been wrenched away and whirled to lee- 
ward like chips. The noise of the wind was bewil- 
dering, indescribable. Speech was impossible. Men 
shouted foolishly into each other’s ears, trying vainly 
to convey trifling jests to prove that they were still 
stout-hearted and unafraid. Furniture was lurch- 
ing, sliding to and fro, thumping against walls and 
partitions with splintering momentum. Now and 
193 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


then a man fought his way to a shattered window, 
peered out for a moment and looked in vain for the 
lights along the viaduct, or strove to discover some 
signal from the key to show that the battling quarter- 
boat was not utterly forgotten. 

At length — and the night had seemed interminable 
— the hurricane seemed to be passing. Its violence 
swiftly diminished, the quarter-boat righted herself 
and almost ceased to stagger under the assaults of 
the wind. The crew slid clumsily over the slippery 
floors, laughing boisterously, shaking hands, risking 
their necks in jigging it like so many dancing bears. 
A desolate dawn was lifting the curtain of night. 

Soon there was light enough to reveal Long Key, 
which had frightfully shrunk in a few hours. The 
surf was dashing over embankments, wharves, tracks, 
and what not, sheer to the camp whose tents had been 
blown flat. Clusters of tattered, frayed cocoanut- 
palms flung their long streamers about like distress 
signals. The viaduct rose sheer and majestic above 
the sea, but masses of debris were washing against 
it and there were significant gaps in the flotilla that 
had fought for survival. 

The quarter-boat gang, elated at having come 
through scathless, was for launching a skiff that had 
been hoisted into the mess-room and going to the 
relief of the demolished camp. The cooks plucked 
up courage to make fires in the ranges and prepare 
194 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

breakfast, while the weary crew yelled lustily for 
coffee. The derrick-man who had been to Barbadoes 
did not join the jubilation. He said little, but he 
was watching the sea and sky, not in the north-east 
whence the hurricane had come, but in the north- 
west which was black and sinister. 

am no croaker,” said he to Hogan, “but we 
are not yet done with it. I mind me that it stopped 
just like this, and then, holy Moses, it whirled around 
and came from the opposite quarter and blew worse 
than ever. The reverse action of the blasted things 
is fierce. And if it does come out of the nor’ west, 
man, — well, I shall wish I had gone ashore.” 

“You mean we will have no beach to be jammed 
up. on?” said Hogan. “I never thought of that. 
The coast of Africa will be our destination. If it 
holds off a little, I may be able to get the men to 
the beach in the skiff, though it is a ticklish land- 
ing.” 

“You are too late,” solemnly affirmed the derrick- 
man. “ Did you feel that puff of wind on your cheek ? 
That came out of the nor’west, Hogan. The hurri- 
cane has spun about like a top and will be down on 
us again in fewer minutes than you have teeth in 
your head. The engineers think we can ride to our 
lashings, but I doubt it.” 

Hogan stared absently at the cockle-shell of a 
skiff. It might hold a dozen men in a pinch and the 

195 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


beach was no more than a hundred and fifty yards 
away. He called to Tom Meserve and said: 

“I want you to go ashore, lad. The boat may 
swamp but ye can swim and make it. I’ll send a 
few strong men with you to help you fetch it.” 

“What is the game, Jack? You look as grouchy 
as an owl.” 

“Never you mind. I want you away from here, 
Tommy.” 

Something in the manner of the sergeant made 
Thomas hesitate and balk. There was serious busi- 
ness afoot. Was he being shoved out of harm’s 
way ? Without attempting to be in the least heroic, 
simply as a matter of habit drilled into him, the 
Freshman said: 

“There is something doing. Jack. You can’t fool 
me. Are you going ashore? If not, then I stay on 
board Number Ten.” 

Hogan shoved him roughly toward the skiff in a 
flurry of impatience, for again the wind blew a warn- 
ing puff from the north-west and shouted in his ear: 

“The skiff for yours. Shall I knock you down 
and toss you in?” 

“Not on your life. You’re crazy,” roared Thomas 
as he jerked himself free and ran forward. “The 
quarter-boat is good enough for me.” 

Hogan shrugged his heavy shoulders, deep sad- 
ness clouded his face for an instant, and then he 
196 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

smiled; for the emotion uppermost was pride, and 
proud indeed he was of the decision of this bunkie 
of his. Lifting his voice in a resonant war-cry, 
Hogan shouted: 

Quarter-boats, ahoy! The skiff is free to them 
that can grab her first. Quitters to the front. 
There will be more wind presently.” 

He had no sooner spoken than the hurricane began 
to blow out of the north-west. A score of men leaped 
for the skiff, fought madly to grasp her gunwales, 
and the weaker were kicked aside and trampled. 
They were still fighting when the little boat was cast 
loose, and as it spun away to leeward in a fog of 
spume and spindrift the sanest passengers were ply- 
ing the oars frantically. Whether or not they reached 
the key, the watchers on the quarter-boat could not 
discern. Their own peril was suddenly renewed and 
they had been given no opportunity to flee to the 
solid land. Number Ten no longer pounded upon 
the hard bottom, nor careened higher up on the key. 
She was tugging at her hawsers and anchors, thrust 
seaward by the enormous propulsive power of the 
storm. Neither small boat nor swimmer could have 
lived when the hurricane once more gained its might. 

A little later and one of the hawsers snapped with 
the report of a cannon. One end of the quarter- 
boat lurched farther away from the shore. Should 
she once break free, the only hope for those on board 
197 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


was that she might fetch up on one of the outer reefs 
before the superstructure should be torn to bits. 
Missing this refuge, Number Ten must drive across 
the wide Hawk Channel and smash against the 
Florida Reef or founder in the Atlantic itself. The 
peril was so imminent and ghastly, so unexpected 
after the brief respite, that the hundred men thus 
entrapped had need of uncommon fortitude to ap- 
pear unshaken. A few had already begun to weep 
and slink into corners where they prayed aloud, 
raising tremulous hands aloft, but for the most part 
these hard and reckless toilers were standing up 
under the strain. 

Hogan kept them busy patching holes in the walls, 
shoring up the braces, and taking turns at the pump 
to keep the water down in the racked and leaky hold. 
A force of the strongest men who were struggling to 
nail a tarpaulin against the windward wall suddenly 
raised a long, pealing cheer that carried across the 
deck. Their comrades rushed to join them, greatly 
puzzled that men should cheer in such a time as this. 
Then there came the sound of a deep-throated steam- 
whistle close at hand. The crew of Number Ten 
beheld a concrete mixing barge whirling out to sea, 
rolling hull under, her deck-house looming in a 
smother of mist and spray. Tom Meserve felt a 
limp hand touch his own and turned to see old 
man Jones, who cried shrilly: 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

‘‘There goes Fitzherbert. He has broken adrift. 
I know his barge by her paint. This is his finish, 
God help his soul.’’ 

The steam whistle of the barge trumpeted one 
long, defiant blast after another, a salute, a farewell. 
Its sonorous message seemed to be inspired and elo- 
quent, as if telling all who might hear that the van- 
ishing craft was going to her doom in command of 
a British gentleman who knew how to die, even 
though he had made a failure of living. More than 
this, the electric lights of the barge’s plant still 
twinkled brightly from every window. So with his 
whistle shouting, not a wild, disorderly appeal for 
help, but a brave and cheerful good-by, Fitzherbert 
went sweeping out to sea and the inevitable end. 
Jones was wiping his eyes as he sobbed: 

“Did you ever know a finer finish than that? 
Stoking his fires, and tooting his whistle, and tend- 
ing his dynamo, and sailing off to glory like a thor- 
oughbred? Drunk or sober, he never showed a 
yellow streak. And I have lost a good friend.” 

“Perhaps he was trying to put heart into us,” 
quavered Thomas, who was profoundly moved and 
thrilled. “Well, Mr. Jones, we’ll try to think of 
him — if — if — we go adrift. Have you a family?” 

“Only my wife,” and the book-keeper’s thin 
shoulders were shaking as he turned away and crept 
back to his corner, where he sat biting his lips but 
199 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


made no other sign to show that he knew how near 
he was to the shadow of death. Thomas was fight- 
ing down a choking fear, the fear hitherto unknown 
to him, that he, who loved his life so much, was 
actually in dreadful peril of losing it. In his wak- 
ing dreams he had beheld himself yielding up his 
life in some splendidly heroic situation for a shining 
cause, but the menacing reality spelled oblivion, a 
thought almost unthinkable. What mattered it if 
he died a hero or a coward? No one would ever 
know. In this crucial moment of torturing intro- 
spection he might have gone wholly to pieces, but 
one of his own gang came up to him and, the bonds 
of discipline unbroken even now, respectfully asked 
for further orders. The youthful foreman came to 
himself, felt his strength return in every fibre, and 
led the way below to try to caulk the gaping seams 
with torn strips of blanket. While he was groping 
with a lantern in water to his knees, Hogan found 
him and reported, as one courageous man to an- 
other of the same breed: 

‘^The pilings are pulling out. Tommy. Two 
more hawsers snapped while we were cheerin’ Fitz- 
herbert, the saints love him. The anchors will be 
no more good than tooth-picks when we begin to 
drift. We’re almost off on the voyage, lad. Will 
you forgive me for fetchin’ you into the thick of it ? 
Not that I am at all disheartened, mind ye, but there 
200 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

will be little chance for a quiet chat after we head 
for the open sea in Number Ten.” 

The Freshman gripped the hand of his friend and 
sung out, to make himself heard: 

am not going back on the returns, Jack. And 
we are not through yet. 1^11 try to keep my nerve, 
anyhow.” 

They had no more than regained the lower deck 
when the quarter-boat broke away clear and free, 
and wallowed seaward before the storm. Along the 
ridge of the rapidly receding Long Key many men 
were running to and fro, now blown flat by the wind, 
again clawing their way from tree to tree, or wildly 
waving their arms. Tim McFarland pushed close 
to the Freshman and bawled: 

“The boys yonder have turned out to see us off. 
I am terrible sorry we haven’t Terry Flynn with us. 
He has cheated the devil this time, sure.” 

Thomas looked into the face of the grizzled ball- 
player. McFarland had no reason to flinch from 
the scrutiny. His bronzed cheek had not paled, his 
shrewd, kindly eyes were bright and undaunted, and 
there was the unforgettable, jaunty alertness of the 
athlete in the poise of his well-knit figure. What- 
ever fate awaited him, he was likely to meet it true 
to form, thought Thomas, even with a touch of 
swagger. 

The superstructure of this huge and clumsy house- 
201 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

boat soon began to disintegrate. It was almost 
miraculous that it should have held together so long. 
Exposed to the unbroken force of the wind, ham- 
mered by the tall and breaking seas, the framework 
was fairly stripped of roof and planking. The 
men had forsaken the second story and were crowded 
into the mess-room below, silently hoping and pray- 
ing that the boat might strike an outlying key. 
This was the fighting chance, the only one. 

With tragic intensity they stared to leeward until, 
at length, a gray blotch barely lifted above the 
leaden horizon, slid swiftly past, and vanished in the 
sad and sombre obscurity of the unbroken sea. 
The fighting chance, the only one, was gone. 

Hogan took counsel with himself and reflected: 

‘^Number Ten holds together most amazing. 
They tell me there are deep-water passages through 
the Florida Reef. Maybe the old packeFll smell 
her way through one of them and not make kindlin’ 
wood of herself after all. But it is too silly a bet to 
be worth mentioning.” 

He summoned Thomas, Tim McFarland, and 
half a dozen other trusted lieutenants and conveyed 
to them, partly by gestures, that if the quarter-boat 
struck they were to crowd outside to escape being 
killed by falling timbers, and to take overboard with 
them anything they could lay hands on that would 
help them to stay afloat. By now Number Ten was 
202 


ON QUARTER-BOAT NUMBER TEN 

reeling across the Hawk Channel, water-logged, the 
combing seas breaking through every opening. Per- 
haps a dozen men, weakened by despair, no longer 
clinging to life like their braver fellows, were 
wrenched from their nerveless grasp of timbers and 
stays and swept overboard to perish. Already those 
fittest to survive were made manifest by their grim 
refusal to cease fighting for life. 

A little while and those who were watching saw 
the surf leaping high ahead of the quarter-boat, and 
heard its awful clamor. There was no open water 
there. Number Ten was about to crash against the 
submerged and deadly barrier of the Florida Reef. 
Even now most of these men were quiet, some dazed 
with terror, it is true, but many of them preferring 
to die like men, and prepared to struggle until the 
last gasp. 

There came one tremendous shock of demolition. 
The quarter-boat, or what was left of it, hung fast, 
was picked up and hurled skyward, and came down 
upon the jagged coral beneath her. It was like 
smiting an eggshell with a sledge-hammer. Almost 
instantly the sea was littered with fragments of hull 
and upper-works, and with men dead and alive. 
The breakers bore this debris off to leeward of the 
Reef, into the deeper water which was less violently 
agitated. 


203 


CHAPTER XIII 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 

Although it had been unnoticed during the last 
moments of Quarter-Boat Number Ten, the hurri- 
cane was abating and patches of blue sky had begun 
to break through the hurrying clouds. It was past 
all expectation that any of the company should be 
left alive; but an hour passed, and then another, and 
the Gulf Stream bore upon its heaving surface a 
number of widely scattered black dots which a sea- 
gull with a mathematical turn of mind might have 
counted up to twenty or thirty. The seas were sub- 
siding rapidly and the survivors who had miracu- 
lously managed to keep afloat until they were clear 
of the prodigious breakers of the Reef, found them- 
selves able to struggle and breathe and manfully 
renewed the tenacious battle for existence. 

One of the bobbing heads which might have been 
discerned by the curious sea-gull aforesaid, belonged 
to Sergeant John Hogan, who was holding fast to the 
rope handle of a bulky wooden chest with one fist 
while he waved the other in frantic signal to a casta- 
204 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


way who was also drifting northward, in company 
with a buoyant mess-room table. Hogan had recog- 
nized the blond head thus visible as belonging to 
Thomas Meserve but for lack of engine power it 
was impossible to navigate in the desired direction. 
A favoring slant of current, however, aided by much 
kicking and splashing, at length carried the twain 
within hailing distance of each other, whereupon 
Hogan decided to abandon the wooden chest and 
swim for the table. Shaking the water from his 
eyes and snorting like a low-pressure exhaust, he 
bobbed alongside the Freshman and sputtered: 

‘‘Hello, boy. Are you hurted anywheres ? I kept 
close to you as long as I could when she was break- 
ing up, but I was disorganized for once. IFs God’s 
own mercy that I have found ye alive an’ kickin’.” 

“I agree with you there. Jack. Hurt? No, I 
am as sound as a dollar, barring a few bruises, 
though I can’t understand how all those flying tim- 
bers missed me. I don’t know what happened after 
she struck. I was whirled about in the breakers like 
a chip and by luck managed to grab this table when 
I was about to give up and quit. What is the chance 
of being picked up? I haven’t lost my nerve, but 
isn’t this a case of out of the frying-pan into the 
fire?” 

“Sure, we’ll be picked up. We are in the track 
of slathers of steamers. The water is warm and we 
205 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


can hang on for a good many hours longer at a pinch. 
As for the sharks, forget ’em.’’ 

‘‘Have you seen anybody else to recognize him?” 

“Tim McFarland went by me a while ago, Tom- 
my. He was hitched to an empty oil barrel and 
ridin’ high and makin’ more speed than me. We 
passed the time o’ day and he seemed to be feelin’ 
fairly cheerful. He said his passage was booked 
through to New York and he was sorry he couldn’t 
stop and have dinner with me. ’Twould take 
worse than this to rattle Tim. Have ye spied old 
man Jones anywhere?” 

“No, Jack, I am afraid he went under right 
away. He had no more strength than a rabbit.” 

“But the little man had the heart of a lion,” said 
Hogan. “I sized him up last night. And strange 
as it may sound to ye, ’tis those with strong hearts 
that you will find sloshin’ around out here in the 
briny to-day. Never again will you be called sand- 
less, Tommy. I was proud of ye. You have stood 
the test and you didn’t squeal, but oh, a lot of other 
good men have gone.” 

The sun had begun to blaze down upon their bare 
heads and soon they were intolerably thirsty and 
found talking painful. The other survivors had 
drifted from sight and they were alone. Staying 
afloat was not difficult. The water did not chill 
them and little strength was required to keep hold 
206 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


of the tiny craft, yet should night fall without rescue 
they could hardly hope to cling to life until the fol- 
lowing day. Hogan made no effort to reveal what 
was passing in his own mind, but the Freshman 
murmured little broken confidences now and then, 
more than once mentioning his anxiety for the 
safety of the girl who dwelt on Little Spanish Key. 
Hogan smiled understanding^, with no more rough 
words of banter or reproof. In his heart he felt 
certain the hurricane must have swept and sub- 
merged the islet of Little Spanish Key, which lay 
peculiarly exposed, but he said nothing of his fears 
and bade his comrade take courage. The afternoon 
was waning when the sergeant said: 

‘Hf we get too weak to hold on. Tommy, the table 
will float with one man spraddled out on top of it. 
I want you to climb aboard, understand?’’ 

“And leave you to go under. Jack? I will be 
hanged if I will. We have been bunkies too long 
to play favorites in this game.” 

“You are as obstinate as ever you were,” ex- 
claimed Hogan, and his accents were singularly 
affectionate. “I will say no more.” 

When the time should come, the sergeant intended 
simply to let go and make no more fuss about it, leav- 
ing the table to keep his comrade afloat. It was his 
plain duty to give Thomas the better chance because 
he had led the youngster into this dire situation. 

207 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


The ethical code of John Hogan had no complexi- 
ties whatever. The sunset was not far off when 
he said with a genuine laugh: 

‘^Remember calling your college scrape a ‘tragical 
predicament,’ Tommy? I never heard words sound 
as foolish as those did. You ought to have saved 
’em to fit this case.” 

“This is certainly the real thing, Jack. Oh, 
how dry I am. And hungry? Well, rather. I 
wish it wasn’t going to get dark so soon, don’t you ? 
My arms are so cramped that I’m afraid I can’t 
hang on ” 

“Glory be, you will not have to,” shouted Hogan, 
tugging frantically at the edge of the table to hoist 
himself an inch or two higher as he gazed at the 
horizon to the northward. A black smudge of 
smoke was plainly visible, and as the yearning 
gaze of Thomas found it, he cried out between his 
sobs: 

“A steamer! Will she see us? Oh, Jack, I 
guess I am losing my nerve. What if she passes us 
way off yonder! It will mean my finish. It is our 
only chance.” 

“You dig your fingers into the planks of this 
table and keep cool,” bellowed Hogan. “God isn’t 
cruel enough to throw us into the discard after He 
has fetched us through this far. Pray, Tommy, and 
wish hard. There’s more than one kind o’ wireless 
208 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


messages. That steamer has got to know we’re here 
and needin’ her awful bad.” 

The steamer slowly rose out of the violet sea, 
first her threadlike spars, then the white cabins, then 
the black wedge of her hull. Would the officers on 
her bridge catch a glimpse of the minute speck or 
pass it unwitting that two men were clinging 
thereto in the last extremity? The castaways could 
send no signals, they could only wait. 

The steamer veered sharply from her course. 
They had been sighted. Soon she slackened speed, 
the sound of her whistle came faintly down the wind, 
and handkerchiefs were fluttering from her prome- 
nade deck. A boat swung smartly out from its 
davits and sailors were swarming down the falls 
like monkeys. Oars dipped and gleamed and the 
yawl slid over the long swells with a feather of foam 
at her cut-water. 

“Grab the lad first,” gasped Hogan between 
swollen lips as the boat sheered alongside them. 

“No, I can wait,” murmured the Freshman. 

“Is this a conversation party or a rescue at sea? 
And are we to lay to while you play Alphonse and 
Gaston?” hotly demanded the officer in the stern- 
sheets. “Yank ’em inboard, men, sharp, now.” 

The courteous derelicts were yanked over the gun- 
wales, like so much water-soaked luggage, and 
dumped on the bottom-boards, wh/sre they lay drip- 
209 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ping in utter exhaustion. Convincing himself that 
they were in no danger of passing away, the mate 
urged his men toward their vessel and observed with 
a matter-of-fact air: 

^‘More of that quarter-boat’s crew, I suppose. 
We’ve picked up nearly a dozen since noon. They 
are impeding navigation, blamed if they aren’t. 
Mighty glad to do you a service, though.” 

‘‘Do you know the names of any of them?” fee- 
bly inquired Thomas, whose head was pillowed 
against a seaman’s knees. 

“The purser can give you that. You are a lot 
of miracles, you are. We caught the tail end of 
that hurricane and nobody understands how a man 
of you pulled through.” 

The Freshman closed his eyes and was content 
to be alive. He was half asleep when the seaman 
hoisted him up the steamer’s tall side, and as they 
carried him to the state-room he awoke only long 
enough to demand, in a plaintive whisper, “a long, 
cold drink of something wet.” White- jacketed 
stewards stripped off his soggy clothing and tucked 
him between the sheets while the captain of the 
Palmetto liner came in on tiptoe to see how he 
fared. Thomas opened one eye, smiled as bravely 
as he could, and slipped away into such blissful, 
luxurious drowsiness that the visitor forbore to dis- 
turb him with questions. 


210 



That steamer has got to know we’re here and needin’ 

her awful bad ” 



L 



AFTER THE HURRICANE 


The captain was about to withdraw when a spare, 
elderly gentleman appeared in the narrow passage- 
way, halted at the state-room door, and waited for 
permission to enter. His manner was extremely 
nervous and his rather harsh and domineering feat- 
ures were twitching in the oddest way, as if they 
were quite unused to betraying emotions of any 
kind. He peered over the captain’s broad shoulder, 
fidgeted, and cried: 

“I dropped and smashed my glasses just as those 
poor fellows were being brought on board. I could 
not see, but — I — I fancied — upon my word, sir, I 
will confess to you that I am afraid to look — Is the 
younger man in this room ? Is he likely to recover ? 
Let — let me pass, if you please. I shall not disturb 
him.” 

The familiar accents aroused the drowsy Fresh- 
man. He winked rapidly, gazed at the captain, 
then at the agitated gentleman beside the bunk, and 
cheerily murmured: 

“How are you, father? Where did you blow 
from? Or have I gone off my head?” 

“God bless you, Thomas, I was bound to Key 
West to find you,” gasped Mr. Thomas Winthrop 
Meserve, Sr., bending over to kiss the boy’s cheek 
and fumbling for a handkerchief with uncertain fin- 
gers. “I cannot believe this is really you. I must 
send a wireless to your mother at once. No, you 

2II 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


must not try to talk, my son. Go to sleep and I 
will come back later. Or do you mind if I sit beside 
your berth, if I promise to be perfectly quiet?” 

The fugitive could scarcely believe that this hum- 
ble suppliant could be the same father from whose 
wrath he had fled in panic terror. It was as if a 
barrier between them had been broken down. Tears 
were in the boy’s eyes as he feebly returned: 

don’t want you to leave me. I’ll come to 
pretty soon. Sorry I can’t seem to stay awake. What 
are you going to wire mother?” 

‘‘That I shall bring you home at once and nurse 
you back to health, my son.” 

“Give her my love, but please go slow with the 
rest of that,” replied the independent heir. “I 
haven’t lost my job on Long Key yet and it is my 
duty to go back and report to the engineer. Excuse 
me for yawning. I can’t say much more now. 
But as for nursing me back to health, that sounds 
honestly funny, father. You don’t know your own 
son. I am fagged now, but plenty of sleep and a 
few square meals are all I need. You couldn’t kill 
me with an axe.” 

Thereupon Thomas clasped his father’s hand, 
smiled contentedly, and was snoring no more than 
forty seconds later. The elder Meserve sat and 
looked at him with emotions curiously jumbled, as 
he said to himself: 


212 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


^‘What an amazing, providential meeting, and 
what an escape! When we picked up those other 
shipwrecked men and learned that the hurricane 
had swept the keys, I was most miserably anxious, 
and now ’’ 

He leaned forward and patted the hard, brown 
hand of his only son, forgetting that he had been a 
disappointment, a source of endless worry, a just 
object of wrath. Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Sen- 
ior, was in every respect a starched, conservative 
citizen and a solid pillar of society. He no more 
paraded his wealth than he did his church member- 
ship, for instance. Even the younger Thomas had 
the vaguest notions of the coupon-cutting activities 
of his sire and took it for granted that horse-shoe 
nails, for the most part, upheld the family fortune. 
The hot-headed son might have had his choice of a 
variety of occupations when he flew off from the 
campus at so wild a tangent, even to helping build 
a railroad on the Pacific Coast. 

At first his father had assumed that the fugitive 
would soon return, penniless and penitent. Later 
when the bulletins of Sergeant Hogan burst upon 
the household, stubborn anger took hold of the par- 
ent and he called the boy a disgraceful puppy and 
was for leaving him to go his own gait. The natural 
pangs of a father bereft of his one child had softened 
this indignant mood, and yielding to the tearful pro- 
213 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


testations of the mother of Thomas, he had written 
a letter to the general manager of the Florida Rail- 
way and Navigation Company, as already men- 
tioned. He was not sufficiently thawed to journey 
in pursuit of the boy, and had adopted this compro- 
mise measure to save some remnants of his pride. 
When no reply was received, however, and no more 
letters came from Thomas himself, the father capit- 
ulated, went to New York, and boarded a Palmetto 
liner for Key West, intending to ransack the Florida 
Keys. 

In the first flush of his rejoicing at the deliver- 
ance of Thomas from a watery grave, he thought 
only of taking him home as soon as he should be 
able to travel. The boy’s flat refusal to forsake his 
‘‘job” was disconcerting and both tact and patience 
might be required. Thus absorbed in his reflections, 
Mr. Meserve had to confess to himself that his son 
had a manly, resolute aspect such as he had not 
worn in college, and seemed capable of taking care 
of himself without parental intervention. 

Thomas was so busily engaged in slumber that 
at length his father went out of the state-room very 
softly, and asked a steward to bring him tidings of 
the other castaway who had been picked up at the 
same time. The word came back that the doughty 
derelict, Hogan by name, was sitting up in his bunk 
and roaring lustily for food and news of his “bunkie.” 

214 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


‘Ht is Sergeant Hogan, of course,” said Mr. 
Meserve. ^‘So he was standing by my boy to the 
finish, just as he promised to do in that remarkable 
letter he sent me from New York. I hope he feels 
able to talk with me. There are so many things 
that I am anxious to learn from him.” 

Thereupon he followed the steward and appeared 
slightly timorous at sight of the large and rugged 
soldier who exclaimed cordially: 

‘^Come in, sir, and make yourself at home. I 
have heard that you were aboard. I am proud to 
shake the hand of a man with a son like Thomas, 
Junior.” 

‘‘You should lie down and keep quiet. Sergeant,” 
cautioned the other. “By rights, you ought to be 
in a state of collapse.” 

“And for what? I am shy some sleep, but IVe 
been restin’ all day on th’ bosom of the Gulf Stream. 
It’s not easy killin’ us Quarter-boats. Look at 
your delicate slip of a lad. Tommy, and think what 
he has been through.” 

“He looks the picture of health and vigor,” 
agreed Mr. Meserve. “And to think he has sur- 
vived when so many others are gone from your 
crew!” 

“We’ll not mention ’em, if you please,” sadly 
murmured Hogan. “You and I have had a bit of 
one-sided correspondence, sir, though me tongue is 
215 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


readier than my pen, and me fist than either. I 
hope ye will not scold me too hard, not till I get my 
strength back.^^ 

‘‘My son seems to think a great deal of you,” said 
Mr. Meserve, deliberately parting his coat-tails and 
seating himself upon a canvas stool. “I am too 
thankful and glad to scold. Sergeant, but you are a 
straightforward man and I am the same kind. 
Frankly, I have considered you guilty of a grave 
error of judgment in leading Thomas away from 
home. You took a great deal on yourself. Because 
he is still a minor, I might say that you kidnapped 
him. But there is something to be said on the other 
side. I failed to make a manly fellow of him. 
You appear to have succeeded. Therefore by-gones 
are by-gones.” 

The speech was slightly patronizing and the man- 
ner of its delivery even more so. Hogan’s keen 
eyes were a shade less cordial and he was no longer 
smiling as he said, with a careless movement of a 
cracked and blistered hand: 

“I will not wrangle with you. You know what 
the boy was when you last saw him at home. Wait 
till he is on his feet. Then look him over. Try 
him out. He is a man. It was little of my doing, 
but I gave him the chance and I steered him straight. 
I expect no thanks, but do not misjudge me, if you 
please.” 


216 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


Meserve coughed, gazed at the port-hole, and 
veered off on another tack. His demeanor was less 
ruffling as he said: 

‘‘Sergeant Hogan, we must have no hard words. 
I hope great things for my boy. He will some day 
succeed to the control of large interests. There is 
one matter that disturbs me greatly. I should not 
mention it now but his mother will expect a telegram 
regarding it. In all probability Thomas will marry 
in due time. Much depends upon his marriage. 
You and I meet on a common ground when we 
discuss his welfare. Who is the girl he mentioned 
in his letter to me? Is he in love with her? His 
mother has been fretting herself almost to a shadow 
for fear he has entangled himself in some wild, fool- 
ish, impossible affair. He had kept clear of senti- 
mental escapades, even in college. Tell me what 
you know about it.” 

Hogan knitted his black brows. Weakened as he 
was by his battle with the sea, he wished that this 
interview might have been deferred, but the father’s 
anxiety made him inconsiderate. The sergeant was 
reluctant to play the traitor to his young comrade, 
but he could not be true to himself unless he told 
what he knew concerning the cloud of suspicion that 
enveloped the household of Little Spanish Key. 

“’Tis for us to speak well of the dead,” he slowly 
replied. “I am terribly afraid that the hurricane 
217 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


may have disposed of the problem ye mention. I 
pray the saints ’tis not true, for she is a flower of a 
girl, and I could never blame the boy if he loved her 
dearly. She is a lady, understand. You need have 
no fear about that part of it. But her old man is 
hidin’ from every one, and whether he robbed a 
bank, as I mistrust, or whatever divilment he was 
mixed up in, there is a black mark against him, and 
he is an outlaw.” 

Mr. Meserve was greatly disconcerted and hastily 
inquired : 

‘‘And what is your evidence, may I ask? What 
do you know about the man?” 

Hogan related in brief and vivid phrase the cir- 
cumstances of the adventure of Thomas on Little 
Spanish Key and the singular episode of the base- 
ball game when he had overheard the daughter 
pleading that her father be let alone. Mr. Meserve 
listened in gloomy silence, nursing his thin jaw, and 
had only to say when the tale was done : 

“As a guardian. Sergeant, you seem to have been 
caught napping. However, I shall soon take the 
boy far away from such people as these whom you 
describe -so unfavorably.” 

“Don’t include the girl in that, sir,” retorted 
Hogan with a good deal of spirit. “Mind you, I 
have nothing to say against her, and you mustn’t 
be too hard on the boy. Bless your heart, he is 
218 


AFTER THE HURRICANE 


just at the age when the heart jumps at the sight of 
a pair bright eyes, an’ one smile can make the 
world go round and round like a wind-mill. He may 
fall in love, as the sayin’ is, a dozen times and fall 
out again as quick, before he finds the real one. I 
am still a young man meself, though I’ve been that 
grandfatherly with Thomas that I began to look for 
gray hairs an’ was grown quite venerable. Can’t ye 
remember what a fool you were for the petticoats at 
twenty, sir? ’Tis harmless, like th’ measles, only 
more catchin’. Go easy with him. Ye can coax 
th’ lad but he won’t be driven. He’s afraid of th’ 
weight of me fist an’ I have him tamed, but I doubt 
if you could handle him in the same way.” 

Sedate and matter-of-fact as he was, Mr. Thomas 
Winthrop Meserve, Sr., failed to resent the auda- 
cious charge that he had once been young, and his 
smile was no longer wintry as he said: 

‘‘You are a persuasive man. Sergeant, and I shall 
look to you for advice. As you say, the hurricane 
may have solved this awkward problem, but I hope 
with all my heart that no such tragedy has hap- 
pened.” 


219 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 

At noon next day the Freshman awoke in a room 
of the Key West Hotel, wriggled luxuriantly at find- 
ing himself in a fulhsized bed, and vehemently de- 
manded much breakfast. His father hastened from 
an adjoining room and exclaimed with animation 
almost boyish: 

^‘Good-morning, Thomas. You sound like a hun- 
gry young giant, and you look astonishingly well. 
Are you really going to try to get up to-day?” 

“Why not? I have important business, father. 
I was so tired and sleepy last night, that I can’t 
even remember leaving the steamer. I suppose I 
navigated to the hotel in a hack. If I had known 
where I was, you would have heard from me sooner. 
I must not lose a moment of precious time. Right 
after breakfast you and I will get busy. What is 
the news from the keys?” 

“The construction camps were pretty well flooded 
and blown down, and the floating equipment was 
terribly shattered, so I hear. But most of the loss 
of life was in your quarter-boat.” 

220 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 


“How about the viaduct and trestles and the 
permanent way?’’ 

“No serious damage, and work will be resumed 
as soon as the force can be organized, camps rebuilt, 
and material collected.” 

“Oh, isn’t that splendid!” cried the young fore- 
man. “Any more castaways brought into port?” 

“A tramp steamer came into Key West this morn- 
ing with four of the crew of Quarter-boat Number 
Ten. Two of these men have been asking for you 
at the hotel. One is named Jones, a little gray- 
haired wisp of a man. He was floating in an empty 
water-tank, as snug as you please, a most extraor- 
dinary escape. The other is McFarland, a stocky, 
self-possessed person, quite entertaining in his way. 
Are they friends of yours?” 

“I should say they are! Isn’t that great?” 
Thomas scrambled out of bed and made for the 
outfit of new clothing thoughtfully provided by his 
father from the shops of Key West. “Wait till I 
fall on their necks and whoop for joy! I knew they 
would turn up. Hooray! this is better news than a 
million dollars.” 

Suddenly this elation vanished. The most vital 
question had been withheld until now. He had not 
dared to ask it, but it leaped to his lips at the 
prompting of his heart: 

“What about the other people, those who live on 
221 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


the keys? Have any relief boats been sent out to 
find them?’’ 

‘‘Key West harbor is a mass of wreckage, Thomas. 
Almost everything afloat was smashed or stranded. 
Two small steamers started up to search the inhab- 
ited keys a little while ago. Why — ^why do you 
ask?” 

“Because I must know what happened to Little 
Spanish Key. The girl lives there, father, Helen 
Eastabrook, the girl I wrote you about; the finest, 
dearest girl in the world. You must charter or buy 
a steamer of some kind this minute. We are going 
to find her.” 

Almost afraid of this impetuous, masterful young 
man, the father tried to delay the conflict of interests, 
and soothingly replied: 

“The relief steamers will visit all the keys before 
we can possibly reach them.” 

“No, they will not,” shouted Thomas. “Hardly 
anybody in Key West knows that there is a house on 
Little Spanish Key. It was built only a few months 
ago, on the side away from the channel. Boats 
almost never pass it. You want me to go home to 
Cleveland with you. If you refuse to help me now, 
I swear I will never go home again. I can make a 
living down here.” 

This was not the happy-go-lucky, “footless” 
Freshman of other days who now stormed at his 
222 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 

father as if it were absurd to be afraid of him. The 
older and the younger generation had squarely 
clashed, and neither was to be bullied from his 
course. The boyish foreman, late of Quarter-boat 
Number Ten, had learned that life held more serious 
troubles than lack of money or place, and as for 
being threatened, there was no more retreating under 
fire in his code of tactics. Not that he had a mind 
to be impertinent or disrespectful, but his rights 
and duties were his own, to be jealously guarded 
and steadfastly fought for. And his father, shrewdly 
versed in reading men, perceived that he no longer 
dealt with a boy. Even while he was prepared to 
fight this issue to a finish, for the first time in his life 
he was genuinely proud of his son. 

‘^Sit down, Thomas,’’ said he with a dry smile. 
‘Tf you put the case to me on the grounds of 
humanity, and these Eastabrook people need a res- 
cue party, I will find some kind of a steamer. What 
you ask shall be done. Now, is it too much to in- 
quire whether you think you are in love with this 
girl?” 

Thomas folded his arms, stared at the floor, was 
ill at ease, and honestly confessed: 

‘T am not quite sure, but I think I shall be if I 
can see her about once more. This is no fluffy 
flirtation. Great heavens! how do I know I have 
any chance with her ? She thinks I am a hobo, and 

223 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


her father would try to shoot me on sight. He 
nearly potted me once.’’ 

“What if he is a criminal? Doesn’t that matter 
to you?” 

“Not the least little bit. She and I agreed that 
choosing fathers was no easy proposition.” 

Mr. Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Sr., had a latent 
sense of humor, and at this wicked assault he threw 
back his head and chuckled until overtaken by a fit of 
coughing. 

“Let us declare a truce, Thomas,” he cried. “I 
am forced to believe you when you state that you will 
not go home unless you wish to. I am going out to 
find a steamer.” 

“Which means that you will certainly annex one,” 
was the son’s confident assertion. “I’ll be ready 
when you say the word.” 

Left to himself the Freshman became restless axid 
depressed. Why had he wasted precious minutes? 
He was too distraught to realize that his father could 
achieve results where he would have merely run to 
and fro in futile endeavor. No more than twenty 
minutes had passed when Hogan came in, looking 
very hale and fit, and announced: 

“The old gentleman nailed a vessel as soon as he 
cleared for action. He is some sudden when it comes 
to business. The agent of the steamer was sitting 
on the hotel piazza, and by the sad look in your 
224 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 


father’s face, I think he had to buy her. Come 
along. He sent me up for you.” 

Thomas bolted the last of his breakfast and ran 
into the hall, but his gait was weak and unsteady, and 
he had to slow down. A hack was waiting at the 
outer door and he climbed in, followed by his father 
and Hogan. Presently they were climbing aboard 
a small fruit steamer which had put into port ahead 
of the hurricane, and a local pilot came dashing down 
the wharf. 

‘^You can’t get anywhere near Spanish Key with 
your draft of water,” he called to the captain on the 
bridge. 

“Then find a launch we can take aboard or tow,” 
crisply observed Mr. Meserve. “What about this 
one hauled out on the wharf ? Where is her owner ? ’ ’ 

“Up in Tony Capello’s saloon at the head of the 
next dock,” said the pilot. 

“Go and fetch him. Captain, have some of your 
men put that launch on board of your steamer,” 
commanded Mr. Meserve. “I will make terms 
later. We have no time to throw away.” 

“Jingo! but you do know how to get action, 
father,” exclaimed the admiring Thomas. “ I always 
had an idea that you were slower than molasses in 
your business methods.” 

“Perhaps we have underrated each other, my 
son,” was the quiet reply. 

225 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

The rusty little tramp steamer moved out into the 
stream as soon as the amazed owner of the launch 
had been hauled up the side by main strength, and 
ploughed toward the Hawk Channel, past the melan- 
choly litter of wreckage which strewed the beaches 
of the harbor. The passengers sat grouped on deck, 
talking little, since all were fagged in mind and body. 
Their mission was not discussed. It was merciful 
to have no more warring argument. The captain of 
the steamer came aft, at length, and asked for orders. 
The pilot dared run no farther toward the inside 
channel, and they were almost abreast of the opening 
which led by devious, shallow passages to Little 
Spanish Key. Mr. Meserve was about to tell him 
to put the launch overboard, when the men on the 
bridge raised a shout and were seen to gesticulate in 
the direction of the port bow. 

The passengers hurried forward and climbed to 
the lofty bridge. Against the dark-green background 
of a distant key gleamed a large, ragged patch of 
white. Above it fluttered some kind of a signalling 
flag or streamer. The captain snatched the glasses 
from a shelf in the wheel-house window, and gazed 
no more than a moment before he cried : 

“A steamer ashore there, and most of her upper- 
works gone by the board. It looks like some kind 
of a river craft. Take us as near as you can, pilot. 
There are people on her.” 

226 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 


He ordered the vessel’s boats to be cleared away, 
and the mates mustered their crews while the fruiter 
crept cautiously toward the stranded wreck. 

“A stern-wheeler, what is left of her,” presently 
exclaimed the captain. 

‘Hs it one of the railroad company ’s^navy, pilot?” 

‘Ht looks like the Memphis Queen, Captain 
Canova, sir,” said the pilot. ‘‘She hasn’t been 
heard of since before the blow. Yes, I’m sure of it, 
although her funnels are gone and she’s stripped 
down to the main-deck cabins.” 

“The Memphis Queenl^^ gasped Tom Meserve. 
“I forgot all about her. Captain Canova has been 
an awfully good friend of mine, father. He has been 
interested in my — my acquaintance with her, too. 
But you must not lay that up against him. Oh, I 
hope he has weathered it all right.” 

They had drawn near enough to see at least two 
score human beings clustered on the main deck, 
or emerging from the broken cabins. The fruiter 
stopped, an anchor was let go, and the launch and 
three of the boats were lowered. Thomas and his 
party clambered into the launch, which soon dis- 
tanced the other craft. As the water shoaled, prog- 
ress became more careful, but soon the rescuers 
were able to distinguish the gallant figure of Captain 
Canova, theatrical even in disaster, conspicuously 
posted in majestic solitude on top of one of the cabins. 

227 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


To the greeting of cheers from the launch he re- 
sponded with a florid bow, his hand on his heart, and 
bombarded his forlorn company with voluble com- 
mands. 

The Freshman fell to scanning the people who 
were pressing along the guard-rail of the Memphis 
Queen, Was he dreaming, or was that portly, 
bulky figure in the foreground familiar in his mem- 
ory? Assuredly it was the ungracious recluse of 
Little Spanish Key, who had been called Mr. Stephen 
Eastabrook. Thomas looked wildly to left and right 
of this forbidding and massive parent. Had his 
daughter been saved with him on board of the 
Memphis Queen? No, she was not there. The boy 
groaned and bit his lip. His father asked him a 
question, but it was unheard. Hogan softly ex- 
plained : 

‘‘From his description, the stout party yonder is 
the outlaw himself, sir. But the girl is not with him.” 

Captain Canova was seen to descend to the deck. 
There followed a stir among his people as they 
moved to one side and the other, leaving a lane be- 
tween. Presently the dashing skipper reappeared. 
A woman leaned heavily on his arm as he escorted 
her slowly to the rail, where she stood waiting for the 
launch. She was slim and youthful, and there was 
an appealing loveliness in her appearance although 
she was pale and languid. Thomas clasped his 
228 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 

hands and murmured an “Ah-h-h!” that was elo- 
quent beyond all words. The hard-headed, critical 
Hogan, who had never liked Canova, was moved 
to mutter: 

Just like him to play to the gallery. The poor 
child was sitting down behind the crowd, too tired 
and used up to stay on her feet. And he led her 
down to the front of the stage for a tableau. Pity 
he couldn’t have footlights and a brass band. Well, 
Thomas, there she is.” 

Aye, there she was, and her face lighted with glad- 
ness unconstrained as she recognized the youth who 
had moved into the bow of the launch. In the jubi- 
lant confusion of the rescue, no one chanced to 
observe that Mr. Stephen Eastabrook had retreated 
to the rear of the crowd as if wishing to efface himself, 
so far as his bulk would permit. This coy manoeuvre 
separated him from his daughter, who remained in 
Captain Canova’s care until she was lowered into 
the launch, which was speedily filled with others of 
the weary, shivering company. Without waiting 
for the boats, the launch was headed at full speed for 
the fruiter. 

Helen Eastabrook was not the kind of heroine to 
faint in this dramatic moment. Hers had been a 
frightful experience to endure, but her high-spirited 
courage and vitality were proof against collapse, and 
while Thomas made her as comfortable as possible 
229 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


with coats and cushions, she smiled her thanks and 
told him: 

“Captain Canova did not forget us. He ran his 
steamer as near to our key as he dared, just when the 
wind began to blow hard, and took us off in one of his 
boats, Levi and all. I think he might have saved his 
steamer if he had not delayed to find and rescue us. 
The hurricane was very terrible, but since then we 
have had no great suffering on board. There was 
food and water, and I slept a good deal of last night 
in one of the lower cabins that was not washed away. 
I was the only woman on board. Captain Canova 
picked up about twenty men who had gone adrift 
from the keys. They all tried to take care of me — 
fireman, deckhands, and the railroad laborers. I 
shall never again call them hoboes.” 

Mr. Meserve, Sr., more than ever regretted the 
mishap to his eye-glasses. He was very near-sighted, 
and therefore he hovered close to Helen and, not- 
withstanding the fact that his vision was handicapped, 
the inspection made him say to himself : 

“There are extenuating circumstances in the case 
of Thomas. At his age — hum-m — I might have — 
well, the fates seem to be playing into the young 
man’s hands.” 

Once on board the fruiter, the captain insisted 
that Miss Helen enjoy the hospitality of his state- 
room. It was Thomas, Junior, who escorted her to 
230 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 

the doorway, and they lingered there for some time, 
his father retreating aft like a self-sacrificing gentle- 
man. Whatever these young persons had to say to 
each other was cut short by the captain, who ducked 
out of the chart-room to remark: 

‘‘My wife came down with me last voyage, miss. 
She is visiting some friends in Cuba, but she left a 
trunk full of her dunnage aboard. You’ll find it 
behind the starboard curtain. The old lady won’t 
mind. Help yourself.” 

Thomas instantly departed and rejoined his parent. 
There followed a long and earnest conference, 
during which the boats returned from the Memphis 
Queen, and Mr. Stephen Eastabrook was able to 
vanish into the second mate’s cabin almost unob- 
served. Soon Hogan appeared and announced with 
surprisingly humble mien: 

“I was all wrong about that brass-buttoned, chesty 
Canova man. I have told him so. He is good 
enough to play ball with the Quarter-boats, and I can 
say no more for him. His men tell me that he kept 
’em jollied up all night long when the hurricane was 
the fiercest, and was as chipper as a cock-sparrow 
every minute. And the way he rammed that crazy 
old packet over the shoals in the dark and picked up 
your friends of Little Spanish Key was a stunt to 
make ye love him. He surely took good care of the 
girl. Tommy. They all say that. You’d better be 
231 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


careful! He is a fascinating sea-dog, is Captain 
Rafael Canova, and when it comes to a grand-stand 
play, he holds the centre of the stage.” 

Thomas felt the acute pangs of jealousy and looked 
so unhappy that Hogan hastened to make a diver- 
sion. 

^‘Did ye note that her outlaw father took to cover, 
as usual?” 

Mr. Meserve interrupted: 

^‘1 am sorry that I was unable to see him at close 
range. Sergeant. Of course he can no longer remain 
in concealment. I shall make my own investigation 
in Key West. The situation is most perplexing. I 
am reluctant to involve his very charming daughter 

in open disgrace, but my own vital interests ” 

interests, if you please,” violently exclaimed 
Thomas. Sparks were about to fly when just then 
Captain Canova strolled aft, almost as sprucely 
turned out as usual, having repaired the ravages of 
the storm in some mysterious fashion of his own. 
Twirling his black mustache with an airy grace, he 
said in greeting: 

‘‘May I have the pleasure of meeting your father, 
young man? Ha, ha, things have been happening 
since the great base-ball game. That Cuban umpire 
was a cousin of mine. He did not sleep well for a 
week. No more excursions on the Memphis Queeriy 
or letters tossed aboard from Little Spanish Key, eh ?” 

232 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 


Mr. Meserve failed to see the vivid blush that over- 
cast the ingenuous lineaments of his son, for he was 
shaking hands with Captain Canova, and eying that 
mariner with an oddly puzzled air. This was a novel 
type of hero indeed. Why, the man behaved as if he 
would be more annoyed by the loss of a gilt button 
than by the loss of his vessel. The successful mer- 
chant and capitalist had begun to mistrust his judg- 
ments of men and motives. Certainly the friends 
that Thomas had mi^.e were able to meet the most 
elemental tests of manhood. Captain Rafael Canova 
waved aside the father’s somewhat labored compli- 
ments, and addressed Thomas with a laugh: 

“Miss Eastabrook was most anxious about you. 
She asked me many questions — if Long Key was a 
safe place to be in a hurricane, and what I thought of 
your chances, and so on. Carramba! I am glad I did 
not know that you were blown out to sea in Number 
Ten. If your father does not realize it, I must tell 
him that you are a lucky fellow, always lucky, 
whether it is base-ball or love or shipwreck.” 

“Not to mention spring-guns,” said Hogan. 

Thomas arose abruptly and retreated forward. 
This persiflage was too confoundedly personal, 
thought he, and besides, there was a possibility that 
Helen might appear on deck before the steamer 
should reach Key West in the star-lit hours. Long 
he lingered in the enchanted region near her door, 
233 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


watched the steward enter and depart with a supper 
tray, and reluctantly went below to join the others at 
table. There Hogan persisted in making tactless, 
brutal comments regarding the non-appearance of 
Mr. Stephen Eastabrook, who preferred the seclusion 
of the mate’s quarters. Thomas lost his temper, 
surmising that a disloyal alliance against him had 
been patched up between his father and the ser- 
geant, and would have nothing whatever to say to 
them. 

In a rebellious mood he fled on deck, and after 
another weary round of sentry duty beheld Helen 
Eastabrook step from the captain’s room and turn 
toward a long steamer-chair which had been placed 
close to the deck-house. In a moment he was 
beside her. Little he cared whether or not the bor- 
rowed ‘^dunnage” of the captain’s wife fitted her 
slender figure. Certainly the white mantilla which 
covered her hair and framed her face was a bewitch- 
ing bit of attire. 

To his anxious queries she told him that she was 
wretchedly tired but unharmed, and they fell to re- 
lating their adventures, each with sympathetic sighs 
for the other’s woes. Finally she said with a mirth- 
ful ripple of laughter: 

‘‘What a blood-and-thunder kind of acquaintance 
ours has been! We have been like two stormy 
petrels, haven’t we ? Even that base-ball game was a 
234 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 

regular tempest. Do you ever have any quiet, con- 
ventional moments, Mr. Winthrop?” 

‘‘My last name is not Winthrop. It is Meserve,’’ 
frankly confessed Thomas. 

“How very shocking!” cried she. “My last 
name is not Eastabrook. It is Rockwell.” 

“Good Lord! You are not married, are you?” he 
groaned. 

“What chance have I had to meet eligible young 
men on Little Spanish Key?” said she. 

“Don’t tease me. This is too serious, Miss — 
Miss — it is Miss Rockwell, is it not?” 

“Certainly, Mr. Winthrop-Meserve. And what 
crime drove you to this disguise, may I ask?” 

Thomas gulped and stammered: 

“Ask my father. He is eminently respectable, 
and is a walking voucher for me. You have only to 
look at him to know he is a savings-bank director, 
believes in high tariff, is a vestryman, and a right 
bower in organized philanthropy. I played hookey 
from college. That is my blackest crime.” 

“What you want to ask, and haven’t the courage, is. 
How about my father?” was her startling remark. 

“No, you don’t have to tell me that,” he cried. 
“I shall not ask you to.” His speech was stumbling 
as he went on: “I cannot tell you how much I have 
admired you for standing up for him in such a 
stunning way. Your loyalty is magnificent. I 
235 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


heard all about your pitching into those railroad 
officials that day at the base-ball field. I tell you, 
you saved him that time.’’ 

‘‘That day at the base-ball game?” she echoed in 
blank surprise. “Why, I do not remember having 
to befriend my father. Two of those gentlemen 
were old acquaintances whom I met by chance, and 
they asked after father’s health and sent him their 
regards ! What twisted idea have you in that foolish 
head of yours?” 

“You did not tell them that even if he were a crim- 
inal he ought to be left alone and given a chance to 
make a new start? You did not beg them to keep 
away from his trail, and all that sort of thing?” 
faltered Thomas. 

“ Oh , you goose ! ’ ’ and she laughed aloud . “I was 
discussing you with the general manager, Mr. Bar- 
rett. Your father had written him, demanding that 
you be sent home. And I was silly enough to inter- 
cede.” 

“Why? Did you care?” The voice of Thomas 
fluttered and he was breathing faster than usual. 

“ I — I was interested in your welfare. I was afraid 
I was going to lose a playmate,” she bravely con- 
fessed. 

“Oh, you cannot lose me!” very earnestly ex- 
claimed the youth. “In fact, if I have anything to 
say about it, you are never, never going to lose me. 

236 


THE RESCUE OF HELEN 


There is a plain statement of fact. Of course you 
will throw me down, but, like my bunkie Hogan, 
the harder I fall the higher I bounce.” 

‘^What about my father? Are you unwilling to 
lose him, too?” she returned with evasive, mocking 
sweetness. 

‘‘Hang your — Forgive me. I do not mean it, 
Helen, whether he deserves hanging or not. My 
father is fully as hard a proposition to handle. Can’t 
we pair them off? I don’t ask you to marry mine, 
and I am not expecting to marry yours.” 

She rose and gravely regarded him, her eyes lu- 
minous in the starlight. • 

“I must tell you good-night,” she said. “I am 
very, very tired. Don’t think I have been making 
fun of you. Tommy. You are as brave and foolish 
and nice as you can be. But don’t you think that 
you and I ought to get our respective fathers tamed 
before we can be real, true playmates?” 

She had vanished before Thomas came out of his 
trance and peevishly muttered: 

“She^^ver gave me any satisfaction at all. How 
can r tell where I stand ? There is one thing sure. 
1 am going to have it out with my father, right away. 


237 


CHAPTER XV 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

The fugitive Freshman sat in a rocking-chair on 
the piazza of the Key West Hotel and glowered darkly 
at the leisurely traffic of the narrow street. Since 
landing from the fruiter the night before, he had 
evaded his father, diplomatic relations having ar- 
rived at the acute state, so to speak. Their last in- 
terview had been brief, explosive, and decisive. 
After fighting his way through construction camps, 
spring-guns, base-ball, and shipwreck, the conquer- 
ing march of Thomas had been checked with hu- 
miliating abruptness. In short, he had run, full 
tilt and head down, into the immovable body, and he 
could no longer be classed as an irresistible force. 
This collision with a pillar of society had sadly 
bruised his spirits. In a few incisive, well-chc.^n 
words, Mr. Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Sr., had 
conveyed the information that an engagement of 
marriage without his consent would limit the young 
man’s income to his trifling earnings as a very minor 
foreman of a railway construction camp,^nd that for 
238 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

lack of technical education his chances of advance- 
ment were almost negligible. 

This problem appeared more serious in the bright 
glare of day than it had by starlight, with a white lace 
mantilla in the foreground. Love in a bungalow on 
a palm-fringed key was a most charming possibility, 
but what if a fellow could not even build the bunga- 
low, not to mention supplying the contents thereof ? 
Furthermore, and even worse than this, if his auda- 
cious, wonderful dream should come true and Helen 
accepted him as a playmate for good and all, how 
could he hope to persuade her father to forsake the 
war-path and view him favorably? 

“As a foreman on Long Key, he will never allow 
me to come within gun-shot of her again, spring- 
guns included,’’ he dismally reflected. “And can 
you blame him? I have a fine lot of prospects to 
spread on the counter for his inspection. Hogan has 
pulled me through every other difficulty, but he can’t 
help me here, and besides, he has gone over to the 
enemy. Well, I think I will send another bunch 
of flowers and a few more kind words to her room, 
on the chance that they run the gauntlet of her im- 
possible parent. If I could only see her again, I 
believe I might live until sunset.” 

Just then Sergeant Hogan rounded the nearest 
comer, arm in arm with two non-commissioned offi- 
cers from the garrison, and broke away from them to 
239 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


hurry across the street and cheerily accost the 
frowning Freshman. 

‘T did an enlistment with those two lads/’ he ex- 
plained. “I have just finished lecturin’ them on me 
favorite topic, the curse of drink. They are on their 
way to sip the invigoratin’ lemonade with me. Will 
you join us, Tommy?” 

‘T like your nerve, I must say,” moodily replied 
the youth. never dreamed of your going back on 
me. Jack. You have filled my father full of your 
horrible suspicions about her father, and you have 
basely ruined my fair young life. You began it 
by muddling everything up at the base-ball game. 
The story you told me was all moonshine. She never 
said a word to those railroad officials about her 
father’s checkered past. She was putting in a good 
word for me, you meddlesome, twistified old trouble- 
maker you!” 

‘‘Harsh words, brutal words, Thomas,” and 
Hogan grinned without malice. “I am going back 
to work at Long Key to-night, and you will be sorry 
for this after I’m gone from ye. I am sor'' disap- 
pointed that I have not broke you of the old tricks of 
bleating and whimpering and blaming others for your 
misdeeds and your side-steppin’ tactics. Have ye 
caved in entirely? Are you too blind to see the 
chance of your life? Here ye have the two heavy- 
armored parents within point-blank range of each 
240 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

other. Have ye tried to bring ’em together? Let 
them bump an’ have it out. I will borrow the garri- 
son band an’ play ’em into action. ’Tis the proper 
strategy for them to fight it out to a finish.” 

‘‘How can I introduce them to each other, Jack? 
I have not even dared to tell my father that her 
father is using a false name. It would make matters 
look blacker than ever.” 

“Holy Moses! ye will, not have to do any intro- 
ducin’,” jubilantly cried Hogan, who was gazing 
at the farther end of the hotel piazza. “Will ye 
look at the two fathers, yours and hers, coming 
out of the cafe door like a pair of old college chums. 
Here is where I retreat at the double-quick. ’Tis 
no place for me.” 

Thomas bolted from his rocking-chair, dodged 
from behind the amazed sergeant, and beheld the 
parents twain advancing, arm in arm, and engaged 
in smiling, animated discourse. The father of 
Helen smote the father of Thomas a resounding 
thump on the shoulder, and a loud “ha, ha!” an- 
swered a jovial “well, well.” 

“’Tis the curse of drink,” murmured Hogan, who 
lingered, rooted in his tracks. “They are coming 
straight from the hotel bar. They have forgotten 
who they are.” 

Thomas was too bewildered to resent this slur 
upon his family name, and stared foolishly until the 
241 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


mirthful, chummy parents were near enough for him 
to hear his own father exclaim: 

^‘But the newspapers all said you were in Europe, 
Rockwell. I have been trying my best to locate you 
for the last three months. I wanted to give you a 
chance, on the ground floor, to take two millions of 
those Oregon Railroad bonds. I owed you a favor 
in a business way. Well, it is not too late, though I 
have not made a practice of transacting such matters 
with outlaws.’’ 

“All my guns are spiked. The piazza is entirely 
too crowded for me. What kind of a false alarm 
was I guilty of, I want to know?” whispered Hogan, 
with which he fled, for once ignominiously routed, 
and hasted after his thirsty friends from the garrison. 
Mr. Meserve actually looked roguish as he beckoned 
Thomas, and announced : 

“Rockwell, this is my son. I understand that you 
and he have met before. He enjoyed your hospi- 
tality, I believe.” 

“I almost blew his head off. He was a most des- 
perate-looking young villain,” said Mr. Saunders P. 
Rockwell, alias Stephen Eastabrook. “How do you 
do, young man? Will you shake hands with me 
and accept the most profound apologies? Really, 
that spring-gun affair surprised me fully as much as 
it did you.” 

The Freshman looked askance at the ruddy cbun- 

242 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 


tenance of this puzzling gentleman who had loomed 
so large in his destinies, and courteously replied: 

‘‘You have me guessing, Mr. Rockwell, and things 
seem to be happening faster than I can keep track 
of them. But the past is forgotten, thank you kindly, 
and I rather think you handled me about as I de- 
served.’’ 

“Handsomely said,” blandly observed his father. 
“Let us sit down and explain matters all round. 
This has been a most extraordinary mare’s nest of 
misunderstandings. I feel as if I had been in the 
midst of a hurricane for several days and nights. 
Rockwell, before my sanity is permanently impaired, 
will you be good enough to finish the interrupted 
story of your exile?” 

Mr. Saunders P. Rockwell of Chicago lighted a 
large cigar and responded between puffs: 

“I told you about all. After consulting more 
specialists than you could count without an adding- 
machine, the gist of their expensive verdicts was that 
I must absolutely quit business for one solid year 
or risk a hurried exit from apoplexy or something 
of the sort. I fought hard but I was outnumbered. 
No dawdling around Europe for me ! There was no 
getting away from cables and newspaper reporters 
and pestiferous promoters and capitalists with gold 
bricks to market. I needed plain living, hard work, 
and something wholesome to play with. Years ago 
243 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


I cruised through these keys and remembered the 
pineapple patches and the splendid fishing, and the 
surprising isolation of it all. My daughter was suffi- 
ciently devoted to offer to come down with me, and we 
were having the finest time you ever saw in your life.” 

“But what induced you to stay through the sum- 
mer?” asked Mr. Meserve. 

“I have worked out thirty pounds of fat since the 
first of May, and I never felt so fit,” cried Saunders 
P. Rockwell. “My pineapple patch was a beauty. 
I couldn’t run away and leave it, could I? And I 
succeeded in keeping under cover until this boy of 
yours ran me to earth.” 

“He thought you had robbed a bank, Rockwell, 
but he was willing to overlook it.” 

“I have gathered in a few banks in my time, 
Meserve, but my methods were never so crude as 
that. Well, I suppose I must go North. I am 
discovered. The jig is up. I feel strong enough to 
stand the Stock Exchange on its head. suppose 
I had better deed what is left of my happy home on 
Little Spanish Key to old Levi.” 

Saunders P. Rockwell sighed heavily. Like an 
echo, a sigh escaped the troubled soul of young 
Thomas Winthrop Meserve, who seemed to have 
been altogether left out of the reckoning. Mr. Rock- 
well transfixed him with a searching glance and 
asked: 


244 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

Going back to college, young man?” 
suppose so. I really don’t know. My plans 
are up in the air,” confessed the youth. “The 
piazza is so densely populated with captains of indus- 
try that a horny-handed laborer is out of his class. 
If you will excuse me, father, I think I will walk 
out and enjoy the sea-breeze. I feel very dizzy. 
You move too fast for me.” 

He went no farther than the stationer’s, however, 
when a glad inspiration made him dash within, buy 
paper, and hastily write as follows: 

My Dear Playmate: 

I have been waiting for a bulletin from you since break- 
fast. I hope with all my heart that you are recovering from 
the wear and tear and will be down-stairs soon. All is dis- 
covered. I know who you are, the daughter of a plutocrat. 
My father and yours have met, and are swapping railroads 
or planning to take them away from other malefactors of great 
wealth. So far poor Romeo has been overlooked. I hope 
to learn my fate ere long. But I cannot see how my father 
can object to^our father, nor how your father can object to — 
oh, pshaw! the farther I go the rasher it sounds. Helen, if 
this brace of reunited parents fix matters up so that spring- 
guns, man-traps, and disinherited heirs vex us no more, will 
you let me say it over again ? You know what I mean; that 
you will never, never be able to lose me ? Here comes Levi 
ambling straight for the hotel. He will carry this note to you. 
Please, oh, please, send some kind of an answer by him. 

Yours forever and ever, 

T. W. M. 


245 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘^Here, you Levi/’ called Thomas. “Wait for an 
answer if you love your life.” 

“ Sure you ain’t gwine to lose th’ answer this time ? ” 
chuckled the faithful servant. “Suttinly, I’ll hot- 
foot it to Miss Helen’s hotel apa’tments an’ ’splain 
how you is fidgetin’ and prancin’ up an’ down King 
Street.” 

Thomas lacked courage to return to the hotel and 
wait, and he was pacing to and fro in front of the sta- 
tioner’s when Levi came rocking along at a clumsy 
gallop. 

“She’s lookin’ peart and shiny-eyed, she sure is,” 
he panted. “I was to tell you ’specially that she’d 
be please’ to see you in her settin’-room at four 
o’clock this evenin’. Yo’ letter sure done her a heap 
o’ good. She tole me to give you this.” 

It was a note in answer, nor did the wind this time 
blow it away from the eager grasp of the recipient, 
who read simply this and nothing more: 

If you wUl promise to go hack to college^ you may say it again. 

“Levi, you are my mascot,” cried Thomas, fum- 
bling through his pockets in a wild and futile search 
for coin of the realm. “Here, you run over to the 
hotel and tell my father to give you a ten-dollar bill 
and charge it to my account. If he asks for me, say 
that I have gone down to the wharf to be alone with 
my thoughts.” 


246 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

Father and son met in their rooms an hour later 
and the elder Thomas remarked to the younger 
Thomas: 

have known Saunders Rockwell for several 
years, but only in a business way. Of course, I did 
not know that he had a very lovely young daughter. 
There has been a great deal of needless commotion, 
Thomas. While of course I cannot speak for your 
mother, I may say that whatever obstacles existed 
— that is — I would most heartily approve if Miss 
Rockwell should be willing, later, to consider an 
engagement with you. This is, of course, pre- 
mature, for you have seen each other but a few 
times, and of course you are both absurdly young, 
and ’’ 

‘‘Now, father,^^ and the accents of Thomas, Jr., 
were loftily patronizing. “You must leave all that 
to me. After observing the swiftness of your own 
business methods when you really wake up, do you 
think I have been letting any tropical vegetation 
grow under my feet ? Most emphatically not. Miss 
Helen Rockwell knows everything that has happened 
to-day, and it is not impossible that she will be willing 
to take you as a father-in-law.” 

“As a father-in-law! Such assurance is hardly 
gentlemanly, Thomas. You take too much for 
granted.” 

“Unless all signs fail, she is willing to take me for 
247 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


better or for worse. There is a condition attached. 
I must return to college.” 

^‘When — how — where did you — you are fooling 
me, you rascal!” excitedly implored his father. 

Thomas smoothed the crumpled bit of paper 
clutched in his fist, let his father glance at it, and 
joyously declaimed: 

“Just forget me until after four o’clock. I can’t 
stop to talk to you another minute.” 

Thereupon he took to his heels and Thomas, Sr., 
set out to find Mr. Saunders Rockwell and go into 
executive session with the other parent involved. 
While they smoked and chatted at a table in the cafe, 
two survivors of Quarter-boat Number Ten entered 
from the street and rested their elbows upon the bar 
at the opposite side of the room. One of them, a 
well-built, grayish man, said to the other, who no 
more than came to his shoulder: 

“Well, Jonesey, old sport, here’s to better luck and 
better weather on the old job 1 I hope you can stand it. 
You are worse broken up than any of the rest of us.” 

The little book-keeper, more of a shred of a man 
than before his shattering experience with the sea, 
coughed and picked up his glass with unsteady hand. 

“I shall have to go back and stick it out some- 
how, McFarland. I guess I’ll feel stronger after a 
while. But it gives me the horrors to think of living 
on one of those keys again.” 

248 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

Saunders Rockwell was staring at the sad and dis- 
couraged little figure, and as Jones turned so that his 
profile was visible, the man of millions roared with 
tremendous vehemence: 

‘‘Henry Jones, come here! What the deuce are 
you talking about ? Why are you not at your desk 
in my office? Explain yourself.” 

Jones jumped clear off the floor and trotted to the 
table with more alacrity than seemed possible. His 
eyes were big, and his thin hands were picking at 
his coat as he stammered, quite breathless: 

“Mr. Rockwell! Yes, sir. I — I thought you 
were abroad. It was this way, sir. Your office 
manager was careless and dishonest, in my opinion. 
I questioned some of his figures, Mr. Rockwell. I 
was interested in having things done right and ship- 
shape. He told me that I was old and worn-out, and 
that my head was full of scrambled eggs instead of 
brains — those were his very words, and he discharged 
me. I came down here because my money was all 
gone. I went east to New York to try my luck. I 
hope you are in better health, Mr. Rockwell.” 

“Scrambled eggs!” thundered the magnate. “I 
will scramble him. Do you suppose I would have 
kicked you out, Jones? Why man, I intended to 
pension you on full pay'i^iext year. You jump on the 
first boat out of here and you go straight to Chicago. 
Figure out the amount of your back salary and I will 
249 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

give it to you now. It is high time that I was home- 
ward bound. Meserve, let us pick up our children 
and get under way as quick as the Lord will let us. 
Fired old Henry Jones! Bring your friend over, 
Jones. I like his looks.’’ 

Tim McFarland’s impulsive, loyal heart was so 
stirred with joy and thanksgiving that he furtively 
dashed a tear from his weatherbeaten cheek as he 
held out a hand to Saunders Rockwell and shouted: 

‘‘I’d rather have it happen to Jones than to me. 
He is a fine little man, God bless him! His friends 
will miss him. It’s a poor hurricane that blows 
nobody good.” Turning to Mr. Meserve, the griz- 
zled short-stop said with a smile : 

“I suppose young Thomas will jump the league 
and sign on with you. I’m sorry you couldn’t see 
him pitch against the Sand-Fleas. Will you send 
him back to pitch for his college?” 

“I expect so, Mr. McFarland. Do you think he 
will stay there this time?” 

“He has learned one thing with us tarriers,” said 
the other. “If he once puts his two hands to a job, 
you’ll have to chloroform him to make him let go. 
I wouldn’t worry much about his making good in 
college.” 

“Thank you. And I hope he will never lose track 
of the friends he has made. They will be my friends, 
too,” returned the father, grateful for this candid 
250 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 

praise of his son. wish I might be of some service 
to you.’’ 

‘‘ My job was not washed away, and I am contented 
where I am. Like Jack Hogan, I want to stand by, 
through thick and thin, until the Long Key Viaduct 
is finished.” 

can use men like you and Hogan whenever you 
say the -word,” said Mr. Meserve, and Saunders 
Rockwell put in: 

shall try to outbid you. I want them myself.” 

Mr. Timothy McFarland bluffly said his farewells 
and, as if in duty bound to take care of Henry Jones 
as long as possible, towed that rescued derelict from 
the cafe to have him refitted at the nearest clothing 
store. 

‘‘Well, Rockwell, how do you like that boy of 
mine?” asked Meserve. 

“A bang-up, manly chap. And I like his friends. 
How do you like that girl of mine?” 

“I wish she were my daughter, Rockwell.” 

The two men clasped hands across the table, and 
were silent for some time. Although neither spoke 
the thought, it was obvious that they were waiting 
for tidings from their children. At length young 
Thomas entered with hasty step, and the bearing of 
a conqueror. No need to ask what news he bore. 
His voice was unsteady as he stood smiling at the 
parents and said: 

251 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘We have decided to put up with our fathers if 
they will be good enough to congratulate us.” 

“Hooray!” cried Saunders Rockwell. 

“With all my heart,” ejaculated Thomas Winthrop 
Meserve, Sr. “Sit down, my dear boy. I shall 
have the honor of giving you a dinner-party to-night, 
if Miss Helen is able to be present.” 

“She will be there, father. And may I ask Hogan 
to stay over? He has been the little god from the 
machine, always on the job.” 

“Certainly, Thomas. I was fortunate enough to 
find a really handsome gold watch in one of the shops 
this morning, and the jeweller is engraving it as a rush 
order. It will be ready to present to Sergeant Hogan 
at dinner. It is an apology from me, in a way. I 
was slow to appreciate what the man has done for 
you. I shall hold a position open for him indefi- 
nitely.” 

“Not if I see him first,” spoke up Saunders Rock- 
well. 

“Now, Thomas,” said his sire, “can you come 
down to earth for a moment ? The circumstances are 
so exceptional that Mr. Rockwell and I have let our- 
selves be carried off our feet. You are going back 
to college, of course.” 

The Freshman hesitated, was much flustered, and 
replied with a dubious nod: 

“I can break into the Sophomore class this fall by 
252 


CONCERNING HER FATHER AND HIS 


tutoring hard for the next month or two. But that 
means three years more, and a fellow is forbidden 
to marry while he is an undergraduate, sir. The 
faculty won’t stand for it. Great heavens! do you 
expect us to wait three years?” 

‘‘You are not twenty-one yet, Thomas. And she 
is ” 

“Twenty and three months and two days,” 
promptly replied the youth. “We are old enough 
to know what we want, and life is short.” 

“If I have any vested rights in this pair of children, 
permit me to remark that they will wait until this bold 
Lochinvar has annexed his diploma,” exclaimed 
Saunders Rockwell, and his fist banged the table. 

“I agree with you,” said the other parent. 

“I am beaten, and I hereby surrender,” cried 
Thomas. “I will talk it over with Helen, and if she 
consents we have no more objections to offer.” 


253 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE RIVAL ’VARSITY PITCHERS 

Tom Meserve, an exile come back to his own 
kingdom, was gazing at the Elmsford campus from a 
window of his old rooms, and his hand rested affec- 
tionately upon the shoulder of his comrade, Howard 
Craig. Theirs was, indeed, a jubilant reunion, and 
the Sophomore year lay before them, a year which 
should be made worth while. Faithful Craig had 
been immensely interested in the tale of moving ad- 
ventures by land and sea, as endured by the young 
Ulysses who had won his diploma as a man among 
men. There was new modesty and reserve in Tom’s 
speech and manner, a certain soberness in his way of 
looking at things, as if he had taken to heart the stem 
lessons hammered into him. 

Craig had smiled and nodded approvingly during 
the narrative, but he was somewhat dazed by the 
sentimental climax. Tom’s letters had failed to con- 
vince his matter-of-fact room-mate that the ‘‘girl 
proposition” was to be taken very seriously, but the 
story of the enamoured young man, as it fell from 
his own lips, left no room for scepticism. 

254 


THE RIVAL ^VARSITY PITCHERS 

As they stood together by the window on this, the 
opening day of the college year, Howard Craig, who 
had been turning various serious thoughts over in his 
mind, spoke up abruptly: 

suppose you will be flying off to see her every 
little while, eh. Tommy?” 

‘‘Not on your life,” cried our hero, with the utmost 
emphasis. “You have sized me up all wrong, 
Howard. Helen and I have agreed to be as sane and 
sensible as two young owls, and I expect to see her 
during the Christmas vacation, and not until then.” 
The fist of Thomas thumped the window-sill as he 
declaimed. “I have come back to college to make 
good, and she will not stand for neglect of duty.” 

“You have changed a whole lot,” said Craig, as if 
this proof were final. “Now I know that this is no 
butterfly, summer-girl romance. I am anxious to 
meet this wonderful Helen Rockwell, who has 
wrought such a miracle with our flighty and fickle 
Thomas. What is to be the year’s programme? Base- 
ball, I suppose. How about study? Are you going 
to try for a high stand in scholarship as well as a high 
batting average?” 

“As high as I can climb,” asserted Tom. “What 
else am I here for? A man cannot be really happy 
unless he is working hard at something or other. 
Why, any bucko of my quarter-boat gang would 
think this a picnic of a job— no more than five or six 
255 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

hours’ work a day to keep your record right up to the 
mark.” 

Thomas hesitated, fidgeted, and blushed percep- 
tibly before he resumed in less confident tones: 

“Say, Howard, I haven’t dared to mention it, but 
what happened when my father came charging into 
town and found me missing? Was the scene very 
painful, and did he rage tremendously?” 

“Wasn’t that all threshed out with him in Key 
West?” incredulously demanded Craig. 

“No-o, I never referred to it during that love- 
feast,” confessed the other. “The topic was far 
from pleasing to me, and it seemed diplomatic to let 
father spring it first. But apparently he did not 
wish to cloud the glad return of the prodigal son, 
and the sad episode of my flight from college was 
entirely side-tracked.” 

Craig turned aside lest the anxious Thomas 
might observe the mirth that made the corners of his 
mouth twitch, but his accents were weightily serious 
as he made answer: 

“ It would harrow your feelings to recall it. Tommy. 
Let sleeping dogs lie. Post-mortems will do no good. 
Your father is a difficult man to manage, and you 
certainly did leave me with a load of trouble on my 
hands.” 

“But about my debts,” solicitously put in Thomas. 
“I made several tactful attempts to bring the mat- 
256 


THE RIVAL ’VARSITY PITCHERS 

ter up after I went home to Cleveland, but father’s 
countenance was such a fine imitation of a thunder- 
cloud that I shivered in my shoes and lost my 
nerve.” 

‘‘We discussed you,” replied Howard with much 
dignity, “and your father decided that the receiver- 
ship should stand through Sophomore year, that is, 
if you were permitted to return to college. And as 
I have had no further instructions since he picked 
you up in the Gulf Stream, that goes, my son.” 

“Fair enough, and I am lucky to be let off so 
easy,” exclaimed Thomas. “Then I shall pay off 
my debts out of this year’s allowance. Do you think 
we can find cheaper rooms and save a little in that 
way?” 

“No, your receiver has no fault to find with the 
item of room-rent,” gravely returned Howard. “But 
perhaps you can save a bit from your dollar a week 
of spending money.” 

Thomas was fumbling in his pockets and hastily 
withdrew a small, paper-covered book which he dis- 
played with a triumphant flourish. 

“My savings-bank account, old man. I tucked 
away the wages I earned on the keys as a fund to 
help pay my own way through college. It belongs to 
my receiver. Take it and spread it around among 
my creditors. There is a lot of satisfaction in feeling 
that I can do something on my own account. Gee 

257 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


whiz! but I slaved for every dollar of it. One 
thing more. Did he find the infernal document in 
the second volume of the ‘World^s Great Orators,’ 
as we had figured it out?” 

“Better forget it,” was the rejoinder. “It gives 
me a shuddery, all-gone feeling to think of that scene 
with Mr. Thomas Winthrop Meserve, Sr.” 

“Right you are,” blithely declared the sunny- 
tempered Thomas. “Now, let’s get busy and look 
the crowd over and mix into the game again. I tell 
you, a fellow doesn’t realize what a great thing it is 
to be an Elmsford man until he has come as near as 
I did to losing the chance. And the base-ball squad 
will be called out for some autumn practice before 
long. I am going to be the ’varsity pitcher this year, 
Howard.” 

Picking up their caps, the pair of Sophomores clat- 
tered downstairs and plunged into the tide of noisy, 
happy young manhood which was eddying between 
dormitories, recitation rooms, and lecture halls. 
Tom Meserve was welcomed with a genuine enthu- 
siasm that made his heart glow. There was no end 
of interesting gossip to be gleaned from this old 
friend and that, and ere long he chanced to meet a 
classmate, Stanley Stokes by name, with whom he had 
trained in the Freshman base-ball squad of the pre- 
ceding year. Thomas instantly demanded a de- 
tailed report of the outlook for the ’varsity nine and 
258 


THE RIVAL TARSITY PITCHERS 


was, of course, particularly anxious to know about 
the pitching talent. 

‘^The pace will be pretty fast for you,” quoth 
Stokes. ‘‘Elmsford will have a strong combination 
in the box. Meredith developed wonderfully last 
season, and pitched three great games in the cham- 
pionship series against Markham. He comes back 
this year as a Senior, you know. Then there is a new 
chap in bur class — his name is Harry Peterson — 
none of our crowd knew him last year. He is said 
to be a phenomenon. The rules barred him from 
the Varsity in Freshman year, and he refused to play 
with the class team. There is something fishy about 
him. He is not exactly a mucker, but he won’t quite 
do. He doesn’t seem to belong in college.” 

‘^Oh, he must be straight enough. Elmsford 
doesn’t want ball-players who are anything else 
than genuine students! You sound like a false 
alarm, Stokesey, old sport. Trying to frighten 
me?” 

‘'No, you just wait till you have a chance to size 
up this big Peterson for yourself. Oh, the athletic 
management is not guilty, I do not mean to insinuate 
that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that one or two 
Elmsford alumni with more money than good sense 
may be responsible for Peterson’s presence in our 
midst. You know the kind, graduates who have not 
outgrown the campus, who think the college can’t 
259 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 

exist unless it wins base-ball and foot-ball cham- 
pionships right along. 

^‘I don’t believe a word of it,” was the rude com- 
ment of doubting Thomas. “The faculty would 
never stand for it.” 

“But how is the faculty to know anything about it, 
as long as Peterson doesn’t flunk his examinations?” 
said Stokes. “I am not such a blithering ass as I 
look. You take my tip, and judge for yourself.” 

Thomas recalled Stanley Stokes as a canny youth, 
both on the diamond and the campus, and inwardly 
resolved to scrutinize this formidable rival of a Pe- 
terson. The opportunity came during the short 
season of batting and fielding practice in the pleasant 
weather of early autumn when the Varsity captain 
took in hand such candidates as were not training 
with the foot-ball teams or the class crews. It was 
speedily evident that Peterson was a base-ball player 
of great skill and experience who was likely to crowd 
the veteran Meredith out of first position. Thomas 
tried to banish the prejudice inspired by Stokes’s 
suspicions and made friendly overtures, which Peter- 
son received with a sort of surly, clumsy indifference. 
He was a powerful, splendidly muscled young athlete, 
in build resembling Sergeant Jack Hogan, but in dis- 
position not at all like that cheery, warm-hearted 
soldier of fortune. His mind seemed to be con- 
centrated on the one purpose of pitching for the 
260 


THE RIVAL ’VARSITY PITCHERS 

Elmsford nine, and he gave the impression that he 
intended to let nothing stand in his way. 

Tom Meserve was manly enough to feel no jeal- 
ousy, for he had learned the wholesome doctrine of 
a fair field and no favor. But Peterson, misled by 
Tom’s boyish appearance and pleasant demeanor, 
made the mistake of trying to bully and intimidate 
him, as if hoping to shake his self-confidence. Such 
tactics might have succeeded with the average Soph- 
omore, but they failed to daunt a late foreman of 
Quarter-boat Number Ten, and Thomas only 
laughed in his sleeve, and worked harder than ever 
to show the captain and coaches that he could pitch 
as strongly and craftily as Peterson or Meredith. 

The autumn term passed without notable incident, 
and the industrious Thomas earned his reward in the 
delight of a Christmas vacation with Helen, and in a 
most satisfactory visit to the paternal mansion in 
Cleveland. He found time to write a long letter to 
Jack Hogan, and took honest pride in telling his for- 
mer guardian that he was ‘‘making good.” The 
reply was delayed and Tom had returned to college 
when he received this bulletin, written in the ser- 
geant’s vivid and compact style. 

Dear Thomas Winthrop: 

Most of the old gang are still on the job, and the Long Key 
Viaduct will be finished on time in spite of what the hurricane 
did to us. It is big work, lad, and I wish you could have seen 
261 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


it through with us. But you are doing your duty where you 
are, and it makes me feel like ready money to hear you are 
making a clean time-sheet with the professors and tearing 
the lining out of the study-books. Get to it, my boy, for it is 
the lads with the learning under their hats that bosses the 
likes of us whose knowledge is mostly in their hands and feet, 
and the strength of their backs. 

Tim McFarland, and a better man never handled a gang of 
tarriers, he was terribly interested in what you had to say 
about your college base-ball. He is one of your chronic old 
war-horses that smelleth the battle from afar. So if you have 
a fond thought in your heart for Tim, sit down and write him 
all about your team and your own chances to win out as a 
slab-artist, and all the rest of the dope. He will be tickled 
right down to the ground. 

We miss you, boy, and whenever a bunch of the old lads 
that was in Number Ten sit around a fire of a night-time and 
fight mosquitoes and swap lies, there is always a good word 
for the tow-headed kid that put the crimp in Terry Flynn, 
and was as game as a pebble when we were drifting out to 
sea with all hades broke loose. No more for the present from 
yours for keeps, 

John Hogan, 

Ex-Sergeant D Co. gth U. S. Infantry. 


Tom’s eyes glistened and he coughed suspiciously. 
The letter stirred his emotions more than he cared to 
show, but it also braced him anew to fight the good 
fight and be a credit, not only to his family, but also 
to Quarter-boat Number Ten. He intended writ- 
ing Tim McFarland at once, but the season was early 

262 


THE RIVAL ’VARSITY PITCHERS 

for base-ball news, and he postponed the congenial 
task through one week after another, hoping to have 
some tidings worth while. 

Then a momentous event occurred. Meredith, 
the crack pitcher of the preceding year, was a care- 
less student, and had unwisely chosen to play foot- 
ball instead of using the fall season to improve his 
standing in scholarship. The result was that he fell 
badly below the average ranking demanded of Elms- 
ford athletes and failed satisfactorily to respond to 
repeated warnings from the faculty. At last, when 
the base-ball season was well advanced, he dis- 
astrously ‘^flunked” one examination test after 
another, and faced the choice of quitting base-ball 
for the year, or of being separated from college. 

With a very wry face and hearty denunciation of 
a faculty which treated a Varsity athlete so abomi- 
nably, Meredith elected to stay with his class and 
forsake the diamond. It was a hard blow to the 
captain, and the campus sputtered its sympathetic 
indignation, heedless of the fact that the victim had 
brought his fate upon his own head. 

The battle for first place as pitcher therefore lay 
between Tom Meserve and the doughty Peterson. 
Now that the spring season was at high tide and 
Varsity honors were at stake, the latter showed his 
real mettle, and the crowd of undergraduates that 
watched the daily practice soon forgot to bewail the 
263 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


loss of Meredith. Tom Meserve was pitching in 
splendid form, but he had to confess to himself that 
he did not know as much base-ball as the brawny 
Peterson, who seemed to have nothing to learn from 
the coaches. Tom had played with old-time pro- 
fessionals at Key West, and their manner of han- 
dling themselves was suggested by the style in which 
Peterson batted and fielded. He was a master of the 
finer points of the game, of the trifles overlooked by 
the amateur, and there was never a moment when 
he was to be caught napping. 

“As well try to rattle a brick house,’’ sighed 
Thomas. “I have the speed, the curves, and the 
control, but he has forgotten more base-ball than I 
ever knew. Who the dickens is he, and where does 
he hail from?” 

This was a riddle indeed, but the suspicions fos- 
tered by Stanley Stokes seemed impossible of proof. 
Peterson attended recitations faithfully, maintained 
a creditable standing in his classes, and appeared 
anxious to be both a good student and a first-class 
athlete. Yet as Tom watched him play ball day 
after day, he was bothered by the notion that there 
was a hidden flaw in his rival’s college career. 
Moreover, Thomas could not rid himself of the 
vague impression that he had seen this Peterson play 
elsewhere, though he could not for the life of him 
clinch the surmise. It was an illusive sense of some- 
264 


THE RIVAL VARSITY PITCHERS 

thing familiar in his appearance and manner of car- 
rying himself on the field. All his puzzlement, 
however, led nowhere, and the tangible fact, admit- 
ting of no doubt, was that Thomas Meserve had the 
contest of his life on his hands if he hoped to be 
selected to pitch the championship games for Elms- 
ford. 

He was not too absorbed in this vital issue to 
forget his intention of writing to Tim McFarland, 
and after one of the early season games against a 
smaller college he sat at his desk and scribbled page 
after page of such base-ball lingo as should delight the 
. soul of the grizzled old short-stop in his camp on the 
far-away key. Tom had much to say about Peter- 
son, with nothing but fair words for the remarkable 
ability of his arch foeman of the diamond. The 
letter duly posted, Thomas thought no more of Tim 
McFarland for some time. Now and then he won- 
dered why his old friend did not reply, but took it 
for granted that he was no great hand at corre- 
spondence under the most favorable auspices. 

At length, when a month and more had passed, 
there came a letter from Long Key which made Tom 
gasp. The news it brought was a revelation that 
instantly demanded the aid and counsel of Howard 
Craig. Luckily the room-mate was within hailing 
distance, and as he responded to the distress signals, 
Tom blurted tremulously: 

265 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘Lock the door, old man, I want to read this 
letter to you.” 

“Is it another death warrant?” asked the other. 
“You haven’t been as flustered since the mix-up with 
‘ The World’s Greatest Orators.’ I thought I knew 
all your guilty secrets by this time.” 

“It is from good old Tim McFarland,” explained 
Thomas, who was pale with excitement. “No, I 
must not tell it wrong end to. You will not be able 
to understand unless I read it to you, every word of 
it. Life certainly does consist of one dam thing after 
another.” 

Craig waited with that composed demeanor which 
he could assume whenever Tom became rampant, 
but his face mirrored many intense emotions as he 
listened to the following extraordinary tidings from 
the pen of Tim McFarland: 

Dear Friend Tom: 

There is a strong lad in your college by the name of 
Harry Peterson, and he is pitching ball on the team with you. 
I said nothing about him when you were down here on the 
job with us. I had reasons of my own. He has been writing 
to me lately, and he has put me wise to certain facts that 
make me shift my tactics. The boy is a nephew of mine, the 
son of an only sister that is dead and gone, and I have been a 
kind of daddy to him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, 
or thereabouts. My record is nothing for him to be proud of 
— ^you get that, don’t you? — and when I was piped off to the 
fact that you hailed from Elmsford College, I laid low, not 
266 / 


THE RIVAL ’VARSITY PITCHERS 


wanting to queer Harry’s game by letting you know that he 
was kin to old Tim McFarland, the has-been. 

However, this Harry Peterson is all right and he means to 
be on the level, but his play has been getting complicated, I 
have talked it over with Jack Hogan and he agrees with me 
that the situation ought to be put up to you, because we know 
that you are a thoroughbred, and will take this as confidential, 
imderstand ? 

The trouble began to stew when I wrote this nephew of 
mine that you and I had been pals and shipmates, not to speak 
of playing red-hot ball together against the Sand-Fleas. And 
this meant that I was ready to fight for you as quick as I 
would for him. 

Then I got a letter from the boy to say that he wasn’t at all 
pleased with himself, and begged me to hand him out a bunch 
of advice. To go back a bit, this Harry Peterson was ambi- 
tious to get a tip-top education and nothing could stop him. 
I backed his game as far as I could, but that wasn’t very far. 
He was going to school winters and pitching ball with a team 
of bush leaguers in the summer-time, and saving all he could 
out of his salary as a ball player. He wanted to go to college 
bad, but the proposition didn’t frame up until a couple of 
sporty gents from New York cut his trail and took an interest 
in him. They had been through your college, when the pro- 
fessors were not looking, I take it, for the base-ball depart- 
ment was about all they were familiar with. 

These rich guys told Harry to make tracks for your col- 
lege, and they would stake him to his four years education, 
and he could study as hard as he liked, provided he would 
play ball for all he was worth and pitch for the everlasting 
glory of Elmsford, and /all that ’rah ’rah business. 

Now, there were no strict^tules in college ball when I was 
267 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


on the turf. And what rules there were against professionals 
was broken by the colleges smart enough to beat ^em on the 
quiet. So this proposition looked all to the good, as I sized 
it up, and I told Harry he deserved his good luck. 

It seems that I am out of date, and the boy’s contract makes 
him a college outlaw, so he tells me. Maybe he would have 
kept up the blufF for the rest of his course, because he is as 
genuine a student as ever took a fall out of a stack of books. 
But the fact that you are bucking him for first choice as 
’varsity pitcher alters the case entirely, for now he knows that 
you are a solid friend of mine. And he knows, too, that I 
would no more stand for your being double-crossed than I’d 
put up with a raw deal being handed out to him. 

To cut it short. Tommy, the lad feels that he has no right to 
stand in your way. It is against the rules for him to pitch 
college ball because he played a couple of seasons as a 
minor professional leaguer. It is his great test, and I hope 
and pray to God he is game to do the right thing. You will 
judge him fairly, for you know what it is to face the breaking 
strain. You were a quarter-boat man in Number Ten. 

Promise me to keep your hands off and let the other lad 
work it out for himself. He does not know that I have put 
you next, but Jack Hogan says you won’t squeal, and that 
the square thing is to tell you exactly where Harry stands 
and how he got into this tangle. If you find time, drop me a 
line. I am not sleeping sound since I found out that this 
boy of mine was up against a problem that is boimd to make 
him or break him. He is the apple of my eye. Tommy. 
The world has used him rough, and he has a hard way with 
him, but I am betting my last dollar that his heart is sound. 

Your faithful friend, 

Timothy McFarland. 


268 


THE RIVAL ’VARSITY PITCHERS 


“What do you think of it, Howard?” asked Tom 
after an eloquent silence. 

Craig flushed angrily and began to walk the floor. 
Sane and steady as he was by nature, his views of life 
and conduct were those of the campus, and his out- 
look no wider than its boundaries. A crime against 
this code of ethics was graver in his eyes than any 
extenuating circumstances that could be mustered in 
its defence. With all the intolerance of youth he 
burst out: 

“I think it is perfectly outrageous, if you want my 
honest opinion. This blackguard of a Peterson 
ought to be kicked out of college. What did Stanley 
Stokes tell you ? He hit the nail on the head. And 
the precious pair of alumni who put up the job ought 
to be exposed. That letter should be shown to the 
faculty at once. No other evidence is needed to 
show up the whole crooked business.” 

Thomas Winthrop Meserve smiled and patiently 
explained, as if he were talking to one younger than 
himself : 

“I learned a good many things that are not in 
text-books when I was on the keys with Jack Hogan 
and Tim McFarland. If you had seen Fitzher- 
bert, broken sot and beach-comber, go drifting off 
to sea in his barge and making the finish of a brave 
and high-hearted gentleman, you would not be so 
hasty to condemn other people, Howard. You 
269 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


simply don’t understand. Why, I never had a finer 
compliment than the confidence placed in me by 
Tim McFarland’s letter. Don’t you suppose he was 
shrewd enough to know that I should be tempted to 
do exactly what you suggest — show his letter to the 
faculty and, by getting rid of Harry Peterson, cinch 
my position as ’varsity pitcher?” 

“He is working on your sympathy and your loyalty 
to him,” grumbled Craig. “He was afraid you might 
find out from some other source that Peterson is a 
crooked athlete, so he spikes your guns. He makes 
you think it would be a low trick to give him away.” 

“Howard, you make me tired,” cried Thomas. 
“You are talking all in the air. Peterson is no black- 
guard. Tim McFarland’s letter is proof enough.” 

“But he has no right to play for Elmsford,” pro- 
tested the other. “It is your duty to see that he is 
barred from the nine.” 

“But can’t you comprehend that this is his great 
test, just as Tim puts it?” persisted Tom. “We 
must give him the chance to work it out for himself. 
You have a wiser head than I, but when it comes to 
handling men and finding how much good there is 
in the worst of them — pooh, you are all at sea.” 

“And you mean to let Peterson play base-ball and 
crowd you out of the race?” 

“For the present, that is precisely what I intend 
to do,” calmly answered Thomas. 

270 


CHAPTER XVII 


TIM McFARLAND’S NEPHEW 

Harry Peterson was not the hardened villain and 
impostor that Craig, in his virtuous wrath, had made 
him out to be. He had entered Elmsford as a Fresh- 
man, with a dogged ambition to make the most of his 
opportunities, and he viewed his base-ball prowess 
as a means to an end. It had been a rare stroke of 
good fortune, as he regarded it at the time, that a 
brace of ardent Elmsford graduates should have 
made it possible for him to win his way to a diploma. 
He had attached little importance to their explanation 
that the arrangement must be kept secret. Associ- 
ating with professional ball-players had caused him 
to look at this subterfuge as no more than a clever 
way of ‘^beating the umpire,’’ so to speak, besides 
which the college rules safeguarding the amateur 
spirit had seemed to him both illogical and unjust. 
A man might work his way through college by using 
his brains and muscle in any one of a hundred ways, 
and still be eligible for the ’varsity teams, but if he 
had employed his proficiency as an athlete to earn 
271 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


money toward his education, he was tabooed and 
blacklisted. 

For these reasons, which seemed sound enough to 
Peterson, he had kept his own counsel and concluded 
that his past record as a ball-player was nobody’s 
business but his own. Through Freshman year he 
had been a tireless student. Freshmen were not 
permitted to play on the ’varsity nine, wherefore he 
had made the most of his time in order that there 
might be no danger of falling behind in scholarship 
when the arduous campaign of the diamond should 
engage his energies. 

Little by little the spirit of the campus, the un- 
written laws slowly builded by generations of tradi- 
tion, had taken hold of Peterson and troubled his 
thoughts. He wanted to be something more than 
a successful student and athlete, and he gradually 
came to perceive that to be an Elmsford man and an 
Elmsford gentleman meant obedience to these same 
laws and traditions. The fellows talked very little 
about.honor and fair play, but it was tacitly assumed, 
it was, in truth, in the campus atmosphere, that no 
victory was worth winning unless it was ‘‘on the 
square.” 

Peterson observed and pondered, and stubbornly 
argued with himself that his particular case was dif- 
ferent from any other, and that it was unjust to call 
him guilty of wrong-doing. If he had broken the rules, 
272 


TIM MCFARLAND’S NEPHEW 


so much the worse for them. But he could not 
be happy in this conclusion, and more than once 
he wavered in his course. The alumni who had be- 
friended him were the real traitors to their college. 
They were the ones who should have known better, 
thought he. 

When Tom Meserve had first appeared for prac- 
tice, Peterson instantly recognized that here was a 
rival to be feared. He perceived that this toughly 
seasoned youngster, with the steady nerve and the 
ready mind, would prove a more dangerous foeman 
than Meredith, and all his fighting blood was roused 
and his scruples thrown to the winds. And when 
Meredith was eliminated by faculty decree and the 
issue lay between Meserve and Peterson, the latter 
was in no mood to let conscience interfere with his 
grim determination to show himself the better man. 
If he should retire from the Elmsford nine it would 
not be because he was forced to quit by this jaunty, 
tow-headed class-mate. 

This was the situation when Tim McFarland 
decided to inform his pugnacious nephew that this 
Tom Meserve was a dear friend of his, bound by the 
ties of all they had lived and suffered together. The 
sentences of his uncle’s letter which Harry Peterson 
could not forget were these: 

‘‘And if you and Tom are playing ball together, 
you must be on the level with him, as you would be 
273 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


with your Uncle Tim. You may not mix it up any- 
where else, for he is likely to travel with the gilt-edge 
set, Harry, but on the diamond give him a little the 
best of it, because he was in Quarter-boat Number 
Ten with your Uncle Tim. I have not mentioned 
him to you before, because I don’t like to butt in, me 
being nothing at all for you to be proud of, and a 
poor hand to pass up advice, but the base-ball season 
must be getting lively, and I want you to know that I 
could think no more of this Tom Meserve if he was 
your own brother.” 

These simple words greatly troubled Peterson, who 
brushed aside all his flimsy arguments in defence 
of his conduct, and looked the truth squarely between 
the eyes. The problem was no longer complex. It 
summed itself up in this concise reflection: 

“Any friend of my Uncle Tim is a friend of mine, 
and that goes.” 

No longer was it a question of playing ball in vio- 
lation of the college amateur rules. This had be- 
come a matter of minor importance. He was taking 
an unfair advantage of Tom Meserve, who by right 
should have a clear field as ’varsity pitcher, and he 
was not acting fairly toward his Uncle Tim. When 
it came to a clean-cut issue between man and man, 
Peterson’s conception of duty was not in the least 
befogged. Like Thomas Meserve, he had been 
taught in a hard and elemental school beyond the 
274 


TIM McFARLAND^S NEPHEW 


campus, a school in which personal loyalty meant 
something. Thomas had expressed all that was best 
in the doctrines of Sergeant Jack Hogan when, in the 
crucial moment, he had made his choice between 
going ashore and standing to his duty and had 
replied : 

“We Quarter-boats hang together.” 

So, now, Harry Peterson, pulled this way and that 
by clashing motives, voiced a similar conviction in 
the words: 

“Any friend of my Uncle Tim is a friend of mine.” 

It was an immensely difficult decision to face. 
To abandon his college base-ball career meant to 
forfeit the education that was most precious in his 
sight. It would mean, also, that he had been taking 
money for this purpose under false pretences. How 
and when should he be able to repay the funds he 
had already used in Freshman and Sophomore years? 
This and other aspects of the problem were so per- 
plexing that the brooding young man sat himself 
down and poured out his heart on paper to Tim Mc- 
Farland, explaining as well as he could how diffi- 
cult the path of duty had suddenly become. The 
tidings so worried poor old Tim in his turn that he 
straightway sought Jack Hogan for light in the dark 
places. And the upshot of this conference was that 
Tim decided to confide in Tom Meserve as already 
narrated. 


275 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


A week passed, and then a fortnight, and it began 
to look as if Craig’s surmise had been correct. 
Peterson continued to play in the daily practice 
games, and it was a nip-and-tuck race between him 
and Tom Meserve, who sometimes had a shade the 
better of it because his rival’s form was oddly un- 
certain as if he were stale or distraught. Peterson 
had abandoned his bullying tactics. His manner 
toward Tom was friendly in a hesitant, awkward 
fashion, and now and then Tom caught an expres- 
sion of wistful, searching inquiry in the other man’s 
eyes as if trying to read his thoughts. Tom main- 
tained an unshaken confidence that Tim McFar- 
land’s nephew would do the right thing in his own 
good time, and paid no heed to Howard Craig’s 
bantering disbelief and urgent demands that the 
matter be laid before the faculty. 

The rival pitchers met thrice daily at the training 
table and greeted each other pleasantly, but each 
was scrutinizing the other, silently wondering when 
the dead-lock was to be broken. Would Tom 
Meserve betray Tim McFarland’s confidence, or 
would Harry Peterson vindicate Tim’s belief in him? 
The climax befell of an early evening in May when 
Tom was studying beside a window in his sitting- 
room, and Howard Craig had sallied forth to join a 
group of comrades who were singing at the campus 
fence. There came a knock at the door, and to 
276 


TIM MCFARLAND’S NEPHEW 


Tom’s lusty summons Peterson entered, his tread 
heavy and deliberate, his strong face grave and com- 
posed as of a man whose mind was made up, re- 
gardless of consequence. 

The two young men stood regarding each other, 
as if neither was anxious to speak first. Tom mo- 
tioned toward a chair and Peterson sat down with 
a nod of thanks. Then he stared at the floor and 
knitted his brows before he glanced up to say, with 
a smile that singularly brightened his heavy features: 

‘^Play ball, eh? Time for me to begin? Well, 
it isn’t easy. I have pitched my last game for Elms- 
ford, Meserve. It is up to you to win the champion- 
ship against Markham, and I think you can do it.” 

Peterson nervously wadded his handkerchief into 
a ball and wiped his face, for he was perspiring rather 
more than the weather warranted. Feigning igno- 
rance of what lay behind this announcement, Tom 
cried out sharply: 

‘‘What do you mean? The captain depends on 
you to be the mainstay of the nine, tho’ I hope to 
beat you out before the season ends. You have not 
strained your arm, have you?” 

“No, but I have overstrained my conscience,” 
replied the other, and he was no longer smiling. 
“You see, it is this way. I didn’t know until re- 
cently that you had been chums and shipmates with 
my uncle, Tim McFarland. He is the salt of the 
277 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


earth, and his word is law with me.’’ It was diffi- 
cult for the speaker to proceed, and he gazed absently 
into space, and his lip quivered before he resumed: 

‘T shall not tell you the story of my life, Meserve, 
but I played some professional ball before I came to 
college. There were circumstances — well, never 
mind — I thought I was justified in saying nothing 
about it and pitching for the college. But when it 
comes to getting in your way — ^why, it looks all dif- 
ferent. I got a letter from Long Key that changed 
my opinions. It said, for one thing, ‘You must be 
on the level with him as you would be with your 
Uncle Tim.’ I have no right to pitch against you, 
Meserve, understand? And I have come round to 
think that I shall be a better Elmsford man for 
chucking up my ball-playing.” 

Tom’s eyes mirrored the most genuine admiration. 
Here was a man worthy to be a nephew to Tim Mc- 
Farland, a chip of the old block. This was worth 
waiting for, and Howard Craig had been all wrong. 
Tom knew what the sacrifice meant, but apparently 
Peterson had no intention of revealing what his de- 
cision had cost him. 

‘T would a thousand times rather fight it out with 
you on the diamond, than to be the ’varsity pitcher 
by default,” heartily exclaimed Thomas. “But I 
am not going to urge you to reconsider your propo- 
sition. Feeling as you do, you could not be satisfied 
278 


TIM MCFARLAND’S NEPHEW 


with yourself to play any more college ball. It is 
bully of you, simply great, and you have proved 
yourself to be the sandiest man in our class. Now 
you will give the fellows a chance to know you better, 
won’t you?” 

Peterson shook his head. “I don’t expect to come 
back next year. I can’t explain why. I shall not 
tell tales on certain men who are much older than I, 
and who ought to have known better — but no more 
base-ball means no more college. That is how I 
am situated. Well, I must be going. I hope you 
will forgive me for not coming to see you sooner, but 
it has been pretty hard to screw up my courage, and 
— and — I wouldn’t have done it for anybody else than 
a pal of Uncle Tim.” 

He was gone before Thomas, who had felt uncom- 
monly tongue-tied, could try to put his thanks in 
words. Howard Craig came in a little later and 
found his comrade sprawled upon a window-seat, 
absorbed in meditation. 

‘‘Come out of that trance,” demanded Howard. 
“Dreaming of the girl, I suppose. Never mind, the 
summer vacation is coming.” 

“Harry Peterson has been here,” said Tom, too 
busy with his own thoughts to deny the sentimental 
impeachment. “You owe him a most humble apol- 
ogy. He is the real thing, a good deal bigger even 
than I thought he could be.” 

279 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


“He confessed, did he? It was the only decent 
thing he could do.” 

“Oh, Howard, that doesn’t sound like you,” 
Thomas reproachfully exclaimed. “Peterson had 
me tied hand and foot. I could not have exposed 
him, you know that. Give him the credit he 
deserves. He said never a word about the price of 
his confession — not a whimper — no hard-luck story. 
He doesn’t know that Tim McFarland has written 
me all the circumstances of the case. I tell you, 
it will be a crime if Harry Peterson has to give up 
college for lack of money. And of course he will 
feel that he ought to return every dollar that those 
sporty alumni, confound ’em, have given him for his 
expenses at Elmsford.” 

“There is not enough in the receiver’s treasury to 
finance the deal, little Great-heart,” quoth Howard. 
“It is a tough situation, but I fail to see how you 
can straighten it out.” 

“The deuce take you and your receivership!” 
angrily returned Tom. “Peterson is man enough 
to work his way through Junior and Senior years if 
he can manage to get on his feet and square up that 
hateful obligation to his backers. I shall write my 
father the whole story and ask his advice. When it 
comes to taking the kinks out of a knotty business 
problem, he is the genuine wizard of Wall Street.” 

“I am afraid you will have to leave Peterson to 
280 


TIM MCFARLAND’S NEPHEW 

fight his own battles,” said the sagacious Craig. 

You must have nothing to do with paying his debts 
or his bills, you know. It would never do — not for 
a minute. If it leaked out — even as a whisper, a 
rumor — the natural inference might be that you had 
bought him off in one way or another — side-tracked 
your hottest rival for the ’varsity nine. Go slow. 
Tommy. Better sleep over it.” 

‘‘You have developed a most suspicious streak,” 
growled Thomas, “but what you say is not without 
wisdom. I will saw wood and keep mum for the 
present, barring a letter to my father. He thinks 
the world of Tim McFarland.” 

There was much excitement on the campus when 
the news spread that Harry Peterson had resigned 
from the ’varsity nine. The captain was dum- 
founded and pleaded and stormed in vain. The 
stubborn pitcher would give no more reasons than 
that he could no longer afford the time demanded of 
a ’varsity athlete, and preferred winning the Phi 
Beta Kappa honors in scholarship to playing base- 
ball for the glory of Elmsford. He was called hard 
names, accused of disloyalty, and found himself even 
less popular than before, but his massive, self-con- 
tained indifference to criticism could not be disturbed. 
His friendship with Tom Meserve could hardly be 
called an intimacy. Their relations were delicate 
and difficult to adjust. Tom dared not show the 
281 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


S5mipathy he felt, lest Peterson might mistake it for 
pity. By tactful hint and question, he learned that 
the other man’s tuition bills had been paid until the 
end of this college year, and that he intended remain- 
ing to pass the final examinations in June. 

The season was drawing near to the championship 
base-ball series with Markham University, and Tom 
was relied on to bear the brunt of the pitching for 
Elmsford. He was absorbed heart and soul in pre- 
paring for this great task, and the campus, rallying 
from the shock of Peterson’s desertion, grew mightily 
confident that Meserve was ‘‘good enough to turn the 
trick.” For his part, he knew that he was fit to do 
his best, and the one serious worry that clouded his 
horizon concerned the problem of Peterson’s col- 
lege career. At length there came this brief and 
business-like note from Mr. Thomas Winthrop Mes- 
erve, Sr. : 


My dear Boy: 

Yours received and contents noted. I approve of your 
attitude in the case of H. Peterson. I saw at once that dis- 
cretion was required. Arrangements have been made so that 
he will be able to discharge his obligations and stay in college. 
You are in no way involved. In fact, he will have no clues 
whatever. I expect to see you at the game in Elmsford. 
Good luck. 

Your Affectionate Father. 
282 


TIM MCFARLAND’S NEPHEW 


“What a corker of a pater he is,” said Tom to 
himself. “And I used to be afraid of him. How in 
the world did he manage to mend Peterson’s fortunes, 
with nobody the wiser? Now, by Jove! I have noth- 
ing to do but pitch the game of my life.” 


283 


CHAPTER XVIII 

WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 

The Elmsford field was a bright holiday spectacle 
when ten thousand people, massed in tiers along three 
sides of the diamond, waited for the beginning of 
the Commencement game with Markham. Over the 
green turf danced a unique procession of reunion 
classes of alumni, arrayed in fantastic uniforms of the 
most extraordinary patterns and colors. A dozen 
brass bands were playing at once, and behind them 
capered weaving lines of gondoliers, sky-blue Dutch- 
men in wooden shoes, bare-kneed, plaided High- 
landers, clowns, and Japanese in gaudy kimonos. At 
home, these clamorous lunatics were rated as valu- 
able citizens of the utmost respectability, but here 
their sentiments were aptly focused in the legend of 
a banner which tossed on high amid the jumble of 
motion and color: 

WE LOVE OUR FAMILIES 
And 

WE LOVE OUR BUSINESS! 

But 

OH! 1 YOU DECENNIAL 
REUNION! 

284 


WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 

In the front row of seats of the most favorably situ- 
ated grand-stand was a little party, consisting of two 
gentlemen of middle age, a sweet-faced woman of 
like years, a slender girl of so much beauty that 
passing undergraduates turned to look at her, and a 
tanned, broad-shouldered, youngish man of sterling, 
rough-and-ready appearance who held himself like 
a veteran soldier. 

‘‘How does it feel to be the mother of a Varsity 
pitcher?” Helen Rockwell asked of her chaperon. 
“I have the advantage of you. I have seen him play 
before.” 

“My nerves are a-twitter,” confessed Mrs. Me- 
serve. “I think that I have not fully realized what 
it meant to Tom until I saw this great, tumultuous 
crowd to-day. Yes, he has finished his Sophomore 
year, and I have never seen him play base-ball, 
Helen.” 

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but this crowd can’t 
rattle him,” spoke up Sergeant Jack Hogan. “You 
ought to ha’ seen the four hundred man-eaters pres- 
ent when he pitched for the Quarter-boats against 
the Sand-Fleas. There was a real game of ball.” 

“Oh! I am so thankful that I knew nothing about 
it,” sighed the mother of Thomas. 

“It is just a year ago since the lad and I were 
bunkies in the first camp we struck,” said Hogan. 
“Saints alive! Who’d ha’ thought I’d be up here 
285 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


now as a guest of the family of the Varsity pitcher, 
T. W. Meserve, Jr.?’’ 

‘‘What has become of the other men of that fa- 
mous nine of yours?” asked Mr. Saunders Rock- 
well. 

“I have framed up a bit of a surprise for the boy,” 
observed the sergeant. “When you and Mr. Meserve 
were kind enough to invite me to come North for 
this game, we had just finished the Long Key Via- 
duct job, and men were being laid off right and left. 
A bunch of ’em came up from Key West in the same 
steamer with me. Five of the old Quarter-boat ball 
team were there, and they all had rolls of money 
that was scorchin’ their pockets. So I fetched ’em 
along to Elmsford for the sake of shakin’ hands with 
Thomas, and mighty glad they were to come. 

“I could get no grand-stand seats, so they are on 
the bleachers yonder, Tim McFarland, Shorty Jenks, 
Bill Harper, Eddie Frost, and Big Mike Webster. 
You will sure hear their ‘college cheer’ before the 
game goes far. I hope the umpire is a fair man. One 
rank decision and those husky lads will be spillin’ out 
on the field.” 

“Ah, here comes our boy,” exclaimed Mr. Meserve, 
and he rose to his feet and unconsciously gripped his 
wife’s shoulder as the Elmsford team trotted nimbly 
across the diamond, and scattered for practice. 
Helen Rockwell was leaning forward, her lips 
286 


WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 


parted, her eyes all for the tall young pitcher with the 
mop of flaxen hair, who lingered behind his comrades 
and waved his cap to her with an impulsive, boyish 
gesture. 

Above the confused noise of cheering and of brass 
bands going it for all they were worth, came a hurri- 
cane chant from the bleachers: 

QUARTER-BOATS FOREVER! 

WE EAT ’EM ALIVE! 

“What do you think of my five strong men ? Their 
voices are as big as their appetites,” murmured Ho- 
gan, but nobody heard him. 

Soon the Markham team took the field for prac- 
tice, and Tom Meserve and his fellows walked to the 
bench. The crack Elmsford pitcher was outwardly 
calm, but his pulse beat fast. One game, the first 
of the series with Markham, had been w'on by Tom 
and his partners after ten innings of hard fighting. 
A victory to-day would clinch the championship for 
Elmsford and avert playing off a tie. Tom Meserve 
had been somewhat agitated by the presence of his 
sweetheart and his parents, but the unexpected war- 
cry of the Quarter-boats had braced his nerves taut 
and filled him with a do-or-die spirit that would 
endure to the last gasp. 

He stood watching the Markham players run 
287 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


bases and field the balls batted from the home plate 
when a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder, and he 
turned to face his former rival, Harry Peterson. They 
smiled at each other and Peterson said earnestly: 

wish I were in your shoes, but you have earned 
the right to face the music to-day.” 

‘‘Thank you, old man,” replied Tom. “But 
Elmsford would have a better chance if you were in 
the box. I want you to meet my folks, after the 
game.” 

“I should be delighted, Meserve, but I must chase 
after my Uncle Tim. He is here with a gang of 
old Quarter-boat men, and he will try to give me the 
slip. He thinks I ought not to recognize him — 
wired me from New York to meet him at the hotel 
under cover of darkness, or some such blessed fool- 
ishness.” 

“I’d be proud to parade across the campus with 
him, behind a brass band,” cried Tom. “Never 
mind, we’ll grab the whole outfit after the game, 
and don’t you let Tim McFarland escape, whatever 
you do.” 

“I promise to capture him, if I have to call in the 
police,” was the nephew’s ultimatum. “Hello, the 
game is due to begin.” 

The crucial moment had come, the umpire was 
dusting the home plate with his cap, and Tom Me- 
serve walked slowly toward the pitcher’s station. 

288 



A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder, and he turned to 
face his former rival 



WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 


“Steady, dependable, and consistently strong,’’ the 
newspaper critics had called him, and while the 
Elmsford coaches viewed him as their handiwork, 
something might be said for the part played by John 
Hogan, late sergeant of the Ninth United States In- 
fantry. 

Certain it was that the Elmsford pitcher was less 
disturbed than his father, his mother, and the girl 
who loved him. In his heart he knew that he was by 
no means as anxious as when he had beheld the ter- 
rible Terry Flynn swagger to the plate. Indeed, his 
pitching was more formidable against these carefully 
trained collegians than it had proved in conflict with 
the motley collection of Sand-Fleas. Skilful coach- 
ing had done much for him, but more than this, he had 
a solid quality of self-confidence, bred of his unusual 
experiences afield and afloat. He was a veteran of 
more arduous contests than the campus and its life 
could offer- 

In truth, it would be somewhat of an anticlimax to 
relate in all its details the progress of this college 
game, thrilling and heroic though it was, for it lacked 
the danger to life and limb of that memorable battle 
on the base-ball grounds of Key West, and the um- 
pire who swayed the fates of Elmsford and Mark- 
ham was as safe as if he had been in his own 
home. No sooner had he pitched the first inning 
than Tom was proof against stage-fright, and he 
289 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


paid no heed to the distractions of the bands and 
the cheering. 

Life could hold no greater prize for one-and- 
twenty than to be pitching winning ball for one’s 
’varsity colors on this brave day of June, but after 
all, the plaudits of the multitude of undergraduates 
and alumni were no more welcome than the hoarse, 
“Well done, boy! Eat ’em alive!” that boomed 
across the field from the explosive group of old 
“Quarter-boats.” And, better even than this, in 
the grand-stand sat the fairest of the fair, Helen 
Rockwell, come to behold her gallant knight acquit 
himself as valiantly for her dear sake as in the days 
when he was a “tarrier” bold, and she was the be- 
leaguered princess of an enchanted isle. The ogre, 
in the person of Mr. Saunders Rockwell, also looked 
on and applauded, but he was now a benevolent ogre, 
who was immensely proud of his son-in-law to be. 

The game was of a kind to stir the blood, with 
its breathless moments and crises that hung in the 
balance through one inning after another. In the 
end, however, Elmsford, pluck, luck, and the flaw- 
less, cool-headed work of the pitcher wrested the vic- 
tory and the championship from that ancient and 
honorable foe, Markham University. 

After Thomas Winthrop Meserve had escaped 
from the frenzied throng which carried him around 
the field upon whatever shoulders could press nearest 
290 


WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 


to him, he climbed into the grand-stand and greeted 
his beaming dear ones, who were waiting to tell him 
what a wonderful man he was, and how proud they 
were to be able to claim him. 

“I will ride into town in your hack,” he said to his 
mother. “I don’t want to lose you and Helen for a 
minute. I can shift my clothes in a jiffy. There 
was high-class company around the field to see your 
hobo play ball to-day. Wasn’t it great? Are you 
glad I came back to college, Helen?” 

“Indeed I am, with all my heart, Tom. But I’m 
awfully glad that you ran away from college for a 
while. How else could I have ever found my fugi- 
tive Freshman?” 

“And to think how near I came to blighting the 
career of this glorious young hero with a dose of 
buckshot,” chimed in Mr. Saunders Rockwell. 
“Well, Sergeant Hogan, some of the congratulations 
belong to you. It was a lucky day for all concerned 
when you abducted this addle-pated undergraduate.” 

Just then Howard Craig came charging across the 
field in a great hurry and announced, when within 
hailing distance: 

“Say, Tom, five very sturdy-looking persons are 
waiting at the gate and clamoring to see you. They 
will be storming the dressing-rooms if you do not 
get a move on yourself. Pardon me, but no one 
else can pacify them in the least.” 

291 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


‘‘All right, Howard. You were ever the faithful 
room-mate,” laughed Thomas. “Those are not 
creditors this time. They must be the Quarter- 
boats. Come along, Hogan. I will meet you at 
the gate, folks.” 

The loyal delegation from the Florida keys raised 
a huzza at sight of their old comrade and pitcher, 
and Tim McFarland, as spokesman, declaimed: 

“It was crackin’ good ball, Thomas, but it struck 
us as kind of tame after the game we dished up when 
that plug-ugly, Mitchell, hammered home his deci- 
sions with the big end of a bat. And for entertain- 
ment rich and rare, did this holiday show touch the 
sight of that Cuban umpire skimmin’ through the 
gate with his coat-tails standing straight out?” 

“Right you are, Tim,” joyously exclaimed 
Thomas. “I want you boys to be my guests for 
dinner to-night. I have a party of my own, but I 
can join you a bit late. And my room-mate, Howard 
Craig, and that fine nephew of yours, Harry Peter- 
son, will see that you get started right. Hogan wants 
to join you, too.” 

There were murmurs to right and left of Tim 
McFarland, who protested: 

“Thank you, Tom, but we have been planning to 
blow you off. We are the hosts for to-night. The 
table is already engaged in the swellest joint we could 
find in Elmsford, and a dago orchestra is chartered 

292 


WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 


all ship-shape. We have plenty of coin. Don’t 
worry about that end of it. And we owe you this 
small stunt for what you did in winning that game 
of ball from Terry Flynn. Isn’t that right, boys?” 

‘^Sure thing,” said the Quarter-boats in chorus. 

Touched and pleased beyond measure, Thomas 
gracefully yielded, and his thanks were straight 
from the heart. Before he left them to rejoin his 
own party, he was called aside by Tim McFarland, 
who whispered very earnestly: 

“About me being uncle to Harry Peterson. For- 
get it, understand? The boy doesn’t deserve any 
such hard luck. Keep it dark from the college lads. 
He was here a bit ago and went off to find a hack for 
us. But I won’t let him ride in it. Take the tip and 
oblige me, will you, Tom — for old times’ sake.” 

Thomas laughed, but his eyes glistened as he 
grasped Tim’s hand and stoutly declared : 

“Ashamed of you? Nonsense! Why, I intend 
to claim you as a long-lost uncle of my own at the 
dinner to-night. You will never catch Harry Peter- 
son agreeing to any such silly notion as keeping you 
in the background. He is not that kind.” 

With this Tom ran after his parents, present and 
future, and was promptly accosted by his father, who 
said, with an alarming frown: 

“I shall ask Sergeant Hogan to escort your Quar- 
ter-boat friends into town, and Howard Craig will 
293 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ride back with you and me, Thomas. The ladies 
will be deprived of your illustrious society until we 
meet at the hotel. I have something very particular 
to say to you.’’ 

Much disturbed at being separated from Helen, 
yet with a good year’s record to fortify his conscience, 
Thomas obeyed, wondering what sort of paternal 
lecture could be impending. Howard Craig had 
joined them, as if he had been notified of a plot, and 
as the carriage moved away from the field, Mr. 
Meserve solemnly explained: 

regret to have to cloud this festive occasion, my 
son, but the time has come for a secret to be revealed. 
Craig has known it, and faithfully kept quiet through 
your Sophomore year, at my request.” 

‘Ht has nothing to do with Helen, has it?” sput- 
tered Thomas. took it for granted that the past 
was cleared up long ago. Please don’t keep me on 
the anxious seat. My college record is spotless. 
Thanks to my receiver, I do not owe a dollar, and I 
have passed all my examinations for Junior year.” 

“Yes, it intimately concerns your college record,” 
his father affirmed. “Thomas, when you ran away 
from Elmsford, I had not the slightest idea of what 
put you up to it.” 

The son stared with an expression of dazed, ludi- 
crous astonishment. “You mean to tell me that you 
never read the two volumes of ‘The World’s Great- 
294 


WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 


est Orators’ ?” cried he. ‘‘You did not discover the 
awful catalogue of my crimes tucked away in one of 
them?” 

“No, Thomas. I have a rather awkward con- 
fession of my own to make. I had already pur- 
chased a set of the books, and I presented your copies 
to a friend, without cutting the leaves. You had 
forgotten to inscribe the title-page.” 

^ “And the friend never gave me away, father? He 
must be a good sport, whoever he is.” 

“A doubtful compliment, Thomas. He happens 
to be the pastor of my church in Cleveland. I 
chanced to telegraph you that I was coming on to 
Elmsford to make you a little visit, and when I ar- 
rived you had taken to your heels. Howard Craig 
was very loyal and diplomatic and tried his best to 
shield you, but I wormed the truth from him. It 
was all quite absurd, was it not?” 

“Absurd! It is the last straw,” disgustedly ex- 
claimed the youth. “Howard, you are a double- 
dealing scoundrel.” 

“Oh, you don’t know me,” chuckled Howard. 
“The richest part is yet to come. Your father paid 
all your debts, settled with every Elmsford creditor 
on the spot.” 

Thomas fairly roared: 

“Then Howard has been obtaining money under 
false pretences. He is a crooked receiver. He 
295 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


ought to be in jail. Here I have been pauperized 
through Sophomore year — allowed a beggarly dollar 
a week pocket-money. How about my wages — my 
savings-bank account that I turned over to you, 
Howard, to be spread among my creditors?” 

‘T put it back in the savings-bank for you,” blandly 
explained Craig. “And besides that, I have saved 
a thousand dollars out of your allowance. Your 
father thinks I am a pretty deft little receiver, and 
has offered me a position after graduation on the 
strength of it.” 

“But why have I been buncoed and deceived in 
this shameless manner?” Thomas demanded. 

“I suggested to your father that it might be a good 
scheme to keep you guessing through this year,” 
was Craig’s complacent answer. “You are away 
ahead of the game financially, and you ought to give 
me a vote of thanks. But you are an ungrateful 
pup.” 

“Craig broke your debts to me very gently,” put 
in the father of the victimized Sophomore. “Then 
he unfolded the receivership plan, and it displayed 
such a lucid gleam of business intelligence on your 
part, Thomas, that I was ready to make terms of 
peace with you then and there. But you were not 
there, you know.” 

“Whew! then I have about twelve hundred dol- 
lars of my very own,” cried Tom, who was suddenly 
296 


WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIP 


diverted by this pleasing result of the conspiracy. 
^‘Say, father, I forgive you for playing such a trick 
on your only son. As for Craig, I shall first compel 
him to disgorge, and then I shall proceed to punch 
his head. Gracious! I am almost rich enough to 
set up housekeeping. Wait until Helen hears this 
news!” 

“Nonsense!” chided Mr. Meserve. “You will be 
only changing receivers when Helen takes charge of 
you, and I am satisfied that she will be as sensible as 
Howard Craig. By the way, perhaps you would like 
to know how I arranged young Peterson’s affairs?” 

“Indeed, I am crazy to hear all about it,” replied 
Thomas. “It was simply splendid of you.” 

Mr. Meserve surveyed his son with affectionate 
pride and answered: 

“It is sometimes convenient to be the president of 
one bank and a director of several others. I was 
able to ascertain, by means of confidential inquiries, 
in which of the banks of Elmsford Harry Peterson 
kept an account, and whose signature was on the 
checks deposited by him. The name discovered, I 
consulted a directory of Elmsford graduates, and thus 
found the whereabouts of the person in question. 
Without appearing in the matter, I refunded to him, 
through an agent of mine, the total amount that had 
been received by Peterson from that source.” 

“How clever of you,” said the admiring son. 

297 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


“Now, will you take my note for the amount and let 
me pay it off with what I can save during the next 
two years 

“No, my son. Some time you can tell Peterson 
all about it, and let him know that the loan is to stand 
until he is ready to pay it off — five, ten, or fifteen 
years after graduation, without interest, of course.” 

“Then I wish to lend him my twelve hundred 
dollars to help pay his way through Junior and 
Senior years, father. Will you help me work out the 
best scheme to make him accept it?” 

“With pleasure, Thomas. Peterson is the kind 
of man who deserves your friendship and mine. 
Bring him around to see me at the hotel to-morrow 
morning. He was ready to make a great sacrifice for 
principle, and the world has none too many men of 
that stamp.” 

“He comes of Quarter-boat stock,” suggested the 
happy Tom. “And you cannot beat it, sir, in a 
tight comer.” 


298 


CHAPTER XIX 


FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE 

The dinner given by the veterans of the Quarter- 
boat nine was delayed until the arrival of Tom 
Meserve, who found the ladies only too willing to 
excuse him from lingering with them at the hotel. 
After all, it was right to share him with his comrades 
tried and true who had helped to stamp him with 
the hallmark of a manhood which neither wealth, 
education, nor social station could have given him. 
He was welcomed by the jovial, ruddy Quarter- 
boats with their battle anthem, which fairly rattled 
the windows of the cafe whose most ornate dining- 
room had been reserved for the night, and expense 
be hanged. Tim McFarland, his coat flung over a 
chair, led the orchestra with a champagne bottle as 
a baton, and Tom was escorted to the head of the 
table to the rousing strains of “For He’s a Jolly 
Good Fellow, Which Nobody Can Deny.” As 
soon as the worthy Tim rested from his labors as 
master of ceremonies, he confided to Thomas: 

“My nephew, Harry Peterson, would insist on 
butting in, understand? But as long as the jollifi- 
299 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


cation is just between ourselves, the college lads will 
not get wise to his having such a battered old tarrier 
for an uncle. 

Peterson stepped between them and exclaimed, 
as if he were scolding a noisy boy; 

‘‘Another word of that foolishness, and we’ll prove 
who is the better man. You are as hard as nails, I 
know, Uncle Tim, but I will bet that I can put you 
on your back.” 

“Shame on ye! I’ll heave the two of you through 
the window if you don’t behave,” interjected Ser- 
geant Jack Hogan, and he looked equal to the under- 
taking. “One of you ought to be as proud of the 
other one as the other is — pshaw, I’m cornin’ out of 
the same hole I went in. We are all good pals 
together, eh, Thomas Winthrop?” 

There promptly followed a concerted attack on 
the elaborate menu which amazed the cafe waiters, 
accustomed though they were to the vigorous appe- 
tites of the undergraduate patrons. 

“Disguisin’ all this grub with fancy French names 
makes it a giddy gamble,” cheerfully observed Shorty 
Jenks. “Every course is like filling your hand after 
the draw. You don’t know what cards you will 
hold.” 

“Stand pat. Shorty,” advised Tim McFarland. 
“You can’t lose. Let your belt out a notch or 
two. Long Key was never like this.” 

300 


FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE 


The speech-making was early and impromptu. 
Every man had a yam to tell of the ‘‘big job” among 
the blue lagoons and shimmering coral reefs, and the 
famous base-ball game at Key West had to be played 
over again, inning by inning. In the midst of the 
joyous racket, the members of the victorious Elms- 
ford nine tramped into the room, and were intro- 
duced all round by the delighted Thomas. Tim Mc- 
Farland was dismayed, and frantically signalled his 
nephew to disown him entirely, but Harry Peterson 
only grinned and bided his time. 

The robust and wholesome young men of the col- 
lege campus and the toilers from the Florida keys 
amiably fraternized without delay, nor was it long 
before cheer was answering cheer, and the Quarter- 
boats were shouting to the world at large that should 
any foe assail the lads of Elmsford they were pre- 
pared to “eat ’em alive!” At length, Tim McFar- 
land whispered to Hogan, who rose, glass in hand, 
and said, with a dignity that became him exceedingly 
well: 

“We are all good comrades and good sports to- 
gether to-night. I have a toast to propose. And 
you young gentlemen who played such clean and 
speedy ball for your college this afternoon will un- 
derstand, and you will be glad to join us. Let us 
drink, standing and in silence, to the two men of 
the Quarter-boat nine who went down with old 
301 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


Number Ten. They were thoroughbreds, and they 
died game. The team is disbanded, God bless her! 
But here’s to the souls of Hodges and Flaherty.” 

The Elmsford men were upon their feet in an 
instant. Here was something as true and strong 
and fine in its way as the college spirit that was so 
very vital to them. Their youthful eyes dwelt with 
frank admiration upon these simple, stalwart, unlet- 
tered toilers who had diced with death and were un- 
afraid of life. Tom Meserve comprehended their 
feelings and smiled to himself, for thus had Sergeant 
Jack Hogan appealed to him when they had crossed 
each other’s paths in New York. 

The captain of the ’varsity nine responded briefly. 
He was a better second baseman than orator. 

“We thank you for allowing us to drink that 
toast with you, gentlemen of the Quarter-boat nine. 
It is an honor and a privilege. Meserve has told us a 
great deal about you. And we are very glad that an 
Elmsford man, and a Freshman at that, had the stuff 
in him to make good with you. A long cheer, fel- 
lows, for our hosts.” 

No sooner was the room comparatively quiet than 
Harry Peterson was making straight for Tim Mc- 
Farland, whom he collared by force of arms and 
dragged protesting toward the head of the table. It 
looked, for a moment, as if the elder kinsman might 
escape, but Tom Meserve and Sergeant Hogan 

302 


FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE 


blocked the exit, and the prisoner, very sheepish and 
ruffled, had to stand mute and helpless while Peter- 
son announced: 

‘‘I want you fellows to know that here is the best 
Quarter-boat of them all — my uncle, Mr. Timothy 
McFarland, and I am tremendously glad of the 
chance to claim him as one of us.” 

Poor Tim was angrily muttering behind his hand, 
“You ought not to ha’ done it, boy,” but every man 
of the Elmsford team was wishing that he owned an 
uncle of this heroic mould, and most of them were 
saying so at the top of their voices. 

“Perhaps we can persuade him to sign a con- 
tract to coach the Elmsford nine next year,” shouted 
the ’varsity captain. 

McFarland was blushing to the ears and wiping 
his eyes with a tanned fist. The ovation was so 
genuine, so overwhelming, that he could find no 
words to say what was in his heart. To cover his 
confusion, Tom Meserve crowded to the front and 
addressed his comrades of the campus. 

“You thought that Harry Peterson ought not to 
have quit playing ball. You believed it would have 
been more loyal of him to stick by the team. You 
were mistaken. I know better, and so does Mr. 
Tim McFarland. He did the square thing, and he 
is the kind of man we want at Elmsford.” 

A little later Peterson managed to whisper to Tom: 
303 


THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN 


“Don’t leave town until I can see you again, will 
you? All my affairs have been straightened out 
most wonderfully, and I am coming back to college 
next year. You are somehow at the bottom of it all. 
I feel sure of it.” 

“S-s-s-h! Not a word. It was none of my 
doing,” smiled Tom. “But my father expects to 
meet you at the hotel in the morning. All’s well that 
ends well. And you deserve all the good luck in the 
world, old man.” 

The ’varsity captain was clamoring to be heard. 
He stood upon a chair and declaimed amid thun- 
derous applause: 

“A toast to our pitcher, your pitcher, to the finest 
man and the best athlete in college. Here’s to Tom 
M*eserve!” 

“’Tis worth ten years of my life to hear it said,” 
murmured Sergeant John Hogan. “He has earned 
his promotion, and I thank God for having steered 
him my way.” 


THE END. 


304 


THE HEAD COACH 

By 

Ralph D. Paine 

Illustrated, $i.^o 

When ‘‘Deacon Kingsland,” the great Yale 
centre, graduated from the Divinity School he 
went to a little out-of-the-way Down-East church. 
In the midst of his uphill work there he got a 
chance to spend his vacation coaching a small 
college foot-ball team. What he found at that 
college and what he did to its team, the way he 
met difficulties, among them the girl in the case, 
and what he incidentally did for his parishioners, 
and what they did for him, makes up a manly, 
stirring story. 

“The story is as good in its way as ‘Tom 
Brown at Rugby,* and it will be sure to find 
many readers among college men and women.” 

— San Francisco Chrotiicle, 

“The book is so compact of healthy young 
manliness and depicts so many sound-hearted 
characters in so winning a way that it deserves 
unusual success .” — Chicago Interocean, 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


COLLEGE YEARS 

By 

Ralph D. Paine 

Illustrated, $1,^0 


CONTENTS 

Peter Burnham, Pitcher 
The Martyrdom of an Oarsman 
A Case of “ Professionalism ” 
Peter Burnham, Journalist 
The Molly-Coddle 
The Casselbury Twins 
The Freshman Fullback 
“For Dear Old Yale” 

A Very Commonplace Hero 
How Hector Won His “ Y” 
The Pretenders 


“ To read them is to the alumnus like a flying 
trip to the old college town. To the undergradu- 
ate they are a living picture of the life about him.*^ 
— Washington Herald, 

No better method of describing college life can 
be devised than that which Mr. Paine has applied 
to Yale in ‘ College Years.^ Each story deals satis- 
factorily with its own field of effort. The author’s 
enthusiasm for athletics and Yale is catching.” 

— New York Sun, 

AD . z . 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 



THE FUGITIVE 
FRESHMAN 


By 

Ralph D. Paine 



Illustrated, lamo. $t.So 


Mr. Paine’s new story, although half the 
action takes place away from the campus, 
belongs with the true college volumes which 
have already found such wide-spread favor. 
College Years” and “The Head Coach.” 
The hero of the story is a freshman at col- 
lege, as the title implies, who gets into a 
difficult situation as a result of a happy-go- 
lucky, boyish escapade, and runs away as the 
only possible means of extricating himself 
from the trouble. He carries the college 
atmosphere with him through a succession 
of most entertaining adventures in which his 
early athletic training stands him in good 
stead and enables him to make his way with 
the men he encounters. It is one of the 
most readable and diverting stories Mr. 
Paine has written and will be enjoyed not 
only by the undergraduate and the boy 
about to enter college, but by the “old 
grads” themselves. 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 



A CADET OF THE 
BLACK STAR LINE 

By 

Ralph D. Paine 

Illustrated. izmo. 

David Downs is an apprentice on 
board one of the big ocean liners to-day 
and his life is as full of adventure and 
excitement as if he were on a sailing 
vessel of sixty years ago, and of quite a 
different kind and character of ship 
than the prosaic, business-like, Black 
Star liner. 

There is a shipwreck and a collision, 
and David finds himself in a situation 
which calls for a cool, steady head and 
indomitable nerve, and which makes a 
man of him. Nor are the adventures all 
on the sea; there are some startling ones 
on shore, along the water front, and the 
book, with its keen, healthy tone, and 
the character of David and his friends, 
makes up a stirring, live story. 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


















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